escrap questions

Okay a few more questions.

I just got the stuff in the mail today to test hard drives, cd/dvd etc drives.

1. I have 4 programs to destroy hard drive data. The one I just used was Hard Drive Eraser. It took like an hour or so. (I took it off quick erase). Anyway, I dont have the patience for each program to take 1 or more hours. Granted, I could, but still. Anyways, for those of who you destroy them using a program, which one do you highly recommend?

I dont mind using 1 and it taking an hour, I just dont want to use 3 and they all take that long.



2. I am noticing on the hard drives that it says if 1 or more screws are missing then the warranties are void for it. On this particular HDD, 3 on one side, and 1 on the other side are missing. Would something possibly still buy this like that, or if it is missing even 1 screw, that it is just good for scrap?

3. I have several PCI cards...I would like to sell them for more than scrap, but how do you test them? Only way I can figure, is playing them into a scrap computer, and testing them that way, but im sure there is a better, smarter way of doing that. Also, would it be the same for RAM?

Thanks again!

ok ill try to answer your questions.

1 pick a program you like to use and do the 3 pass wipe. That is the DOD standard one usualy. It will take an hour at least to do this and even longer on larger drives. The 200gb or larger drives I do before I go to bed I just set it to run and its done in the AM.

2 If your reselling the drives the waranty wont be good anyway. Generaly I dont sell drives with missing screws because this open the inside of the drive to dust.

3 Only way to test a video card that I know of is to plug it in and run testing software. For selling on ebay I just plug them into my test bench systems I have set up and if it powers up and screen comes on I call it good. Be warned that this isnt the end all test and if your selling some gaming type cards they may fail under stress testing. You may get returns if this happens. There are some programs out there for strss testing video cards as well.

I test ram the same way. Plug it in run test software on it. Or you can buy a ram tester but they run about 3000 to 5000 bucks.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

ok ill try to answer your questions.

1 pick a program you like to use and do the 3 pass wipe. That is the DOD standard one usualy. It will take an hour at least to do this and even longer on larger drives. The 200gb or larger drives I do before I go to bed I just set it to run and its done in the AM.

2 If your reselling the drives the waranty wont be good anyway. Generaly I dont sell drives with missing screws because this open the inside of the drive to dust.

3 Only way to test a video card that I know of is to plug it in and run testing software. For selling on ebay I just plug them into my test bench systems I have set up and if it powers up and screen comes on I call it good. Be warned that this isnt the end all test and if your selling some gaming type cards they may fail under stress testing. You may get returns if this happens. There are some programs out there for strss testing video cards as well.

I test ram the same way. Plug it in run test software on it. Or you can buy a ram tester but they run about 3000 to 5000 bucks.

Hope that helps.

Well, I definitely dont want to earn a bad reputation, so perhaps, I will see if someone local might want to purchase, and if not, then scrap it.

Thanks for that part.

I know you have your box thing on your bench, but is that what you use for the pci cards to? Or you just have a pc setup to plug it into real fast?

Not to sound ignorant but what is a 3 pass swipe?

When I hard Hard Drive Eraser, for the shredding scheme it has it as "DoD 52220-22m" and the file system as "NTFS"

Yeah, right now I am testing all my cd/dvdrw drives, and then doing the hdd since they take a while.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

Well, I definitely dont want to earn a bad reputation, so perhaps, I will see if someone local might want to purchase, and if not, then scrap it.

Thanks for that part.

I know you have your box thing on your bench, but is that what you use for the pci cards to? Or you just have a pc setup to plug it into real fast?

Not to sound ignorant but what is a 3 pass swipe?

When I hard Hard Drive Eraser, for the shredding scheme it has it as "DoD 52220-22m" and the file system as "NTFS"

Yeah, right now I am testing all my cd/dvdrw drives, and then doing the hdd since they take a while.

Geo when I say test bench its just a couple of motherboards with the different slots on it so I can test the different cards and memory sticks.

My box thing as you call it is my drive dock. I use that to test drives I have to use test bench set up to test cards and ram till I can afford a ram tester.

3 pass wipe. Thats how many times the program writes to the hard drive. Each program is different. the one your using is the same thing.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Geo when I say test bench its just a couple of motherboards with the different slots on it so I can test the different cards and memory sticks.

My box thing as you call it is my drive dock. I use that to test drives I have to use test bench set up to test cards and ram till I can afford a ram tester.

3 pass wipe. Thats how many times the program rights to the hard drive. Each program is different. the one your using is the same thing.

Figured so.

I have some more PCs coming my way from family, so probably will keep them, go and get a couple of monitors and keyboards to test drive the pci cards and ram.