Re: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?

On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 3:21 PM Matthias Apitz <guru@unixarea.de> wrote:

> El día jueves, octubre 10, 2024 a las 04:57:49 -0700, Ronald F. Guilmette
> escribió:
>
> > I have a pretty ancient 4TB spinning rust drive (WD4001FAEX) that is
> unambiguously at
> > death's door:
> >
> > ...
>
> I used once an axe to destroy the (metal) case and slices and
> then I throw it into the wastebin of my house which is emtied once a
> week into a big truck and perhaps it content is put on fire.
>
> > Any suggestions?  If worse comes to worse I guess I will end up writing
> my own tiny
> > little C program to just write 4KB blocks to a designated output file
> while ignoring
> > all output errors, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if somebody
> else already
> > created something I can use in this context.
>
> Overwriting the data will not help. The reading head(s) could be
> adjusted and read the data on the side of the old track.
>
>         matthias
>

I open the case, remove the platters and the magnets (for use elsewhere),
and repurpose the casing!


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