2d ago

I ordered a used HDD a few minutes ago. Any tips?

1d ago

We've all been able to related to this in the near-past and probably right now...although I don't currently have any orders on the way

63 comments

Yes, tip number 1: never buy an used HDD
Tip number 2: check smart if there are relocated sectors return it
Tip number 3: run badblocks on the drive, (-w mode) and if there are no errors then check smart again, if there are errors or relocated sectors return the drive
Good luck!
- Yes, tip number 1: never buy an used HDD
  That's not a good tip.
  
  It's the best tip, buying an used HDD is asking for trouble
- Your tip 1 isn't good for all situations. I have a 4 drive RAID 10 setup I have zero issues putting a used drive in after I test and inspect. Used doesn't mean trash, it's all situational.
  Also, backup backup backup.
  And "used" could be used wrong here, I typically use serverpartdeals and get 20TB+ drive sizes, refurbished. They come with a 5 year warranty and will get them replaced if there are issues.
- Yes, tip number 1: never buy an used HDD
  Why shouldn't one? Because SSDs are more reliable or what?
if it's a traditional/old style with a spinning magnetic disc, listen for clicking sounds as it reads, if you hear clicks it's probably about to die, don't put anything valuable on it.
I bought a used external HDD for the interfaces - esata, usb3, FireWire 800. Lets me move data at max speed between my iBook, MacBook, pc...
...turns out it was stolen. :(
Infamous advice after purchasing questions
I don't buy used HDDs, or brake pads, or helmets, or climbing rope, or...
- Condoms
- You can install Linux on it. And occasionally backup all personal files
What kind of HDD did you get?
I'm trying to decide between a PATA IDE drive for authenticity or getting a new controller board for my PS2 to use a SATA drive I already have laying around. It'd certainly be easier to use the sata drive but like... Authenticity tho
- Emulator and save the PS2 for all posterity?
  
  Naur lol.
  The PS2 is already slightly modded, got it at a retro shop.
  Since the seals are broken, and work has already been done I have no qualms about modding it further.
  Also I don't have an emulator that can output to a CRT sooooo...
  I just need freeHDloader and OPL on it because the motors in the optical drive are beginning to burn out.
Tip: keep refreshing the tracking page every 60 seconds. This makes the parcel travel even faster.
- Make sure you use a red theme (maybe with flames) for your browser.
- Little known fact: refreshing the tracking page not only tells the company that you are invested in your package's arrival time, this telling them to prioritize it, it also pumps electrons into the cardboard so that it is attracted to the fastest moving delivery vehicle.
  (Just kidding, neither of these things are true.)
- No it's like bittorrent downloads, if you look at it it goes slower!
  
  For me it goes faster for some reason when I look at it but gets slower when I look away
Don't look at it.
Boot into a linux live usb
Run dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<driveid>
I probably didn't get that perfect, but, close enough. Look it up on the internet or check the man page idk
- When it comes to old drives, looking is half the fun.
- What is this where did my OS go?
  I love dd. Hate using USB programs to burn iso they are all different and weird but man dd is great.
  
  I don't mind dd when I'm not in a hurry, but I usually prefer to just use the built in KDE disk utility. I'm pretty sure its based on Parted and DD under the hood.
don't order used SSD.
theatrically turn away from the tracking page and make it feel like you don't care, it can smell your fear, the same way a printer does, and it'll then arrive a day after you need it the most
When it finally arrives you should run some tests to ensure the drive is not bad. This repo is a decent resource: https://github.com/Spearfoot/disk-burnin-and-testing
Recover the data on it. Burn it with fire. Cry because you saw what it was.
Ask yourself why there is a school report on an animation studio on the "new" laptop your "stepmothers" mother bought and used towards the end as she lost her senses thinking people were spying on her trying to hide everything from "the them" deleting what ever she thought was spying on her.
- Is this a reference?
If it's a spinning disk hard drive then do a low level format i.e. do a security write zeros on the whole disk (be sure to delete all partitions first). This will try to write a zero to every single sector, and any bad sectors will be removed from use.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Badblocks
  dd /dev/urandom after if you're encrypting the disk
- I don't think you need to delete the partitions separately, since it's just a table at the very beginning of which parts of the disk belong to which partition?
  So if you dd zeroes over everything, the first thing that gets deleted is the partitioning table
  I might be wrong here, or maybe it doesn't apply to every situation, but that's how I've understood it to work
  Also a tip for OP: don't write zeroes over it, but random data (dd if=/dev/urandom ...). It's a bit more secure as it makes it harder to see the size and location of the encrypted data on the disk
  
  I've found that on some systems and some utility apps, if there are partitions present then doing a zeroing pass only zeros the partition rather than the entire drive itself
Any tips?
yeah, wipe that shit, especially an MBR if present.
... or, if you're evil, run photorec /s
use data recovery software to find out what used to be on there
- Porn... guaranteed
  
  Just hope it's legal porn.
  
  Quick way to turn a 12tb drive into a 8tb drive on arrival.
Meditate until you reach the realization that, hdd is useless, all material stuff is useless and you have reached nirvana.
- But I was downloading nirvana on my used hdd.
This was me when I was ordering the parts for my gaming pc
- Then when they get here they sit in the boxes for 6 months before the build just as God intended
  
  I feel this deep in my homelab.
This is why I stopped ordering from wish, I study the tracking like I'm investigating the cartel.
- No kidding, once I was able to exactly follow the route of my laptop shipped from Lenovo (China) on flightradar after a careful study of carrier/parcel number/tracking events time and don't remember what else. It was literal real time tracking. Don't even remember how I did it.
- With wish, that might be exactly what you are investigating.
Turns out, you already have a used HDD.
I'm very impatient. I find planning how you will use the item helps a bit.
Are you the reason eBay asks for GPS data?
- When does eBay ask for GPS data?
Start emailing and bombing review sites until you get a photo of it in dispatch
I suggest waiting for delivery before further action.

63 comments