PCA Forums

im looking for a way to clear hard drives when you have lots to do at one time !
maybe 20-100 or more and the fastest and cheapest way -i know this will require a special unit
and ideas what to buy and were to find a unit like this !

LOL, if you really want to clear them, and fast, take them to a store where they have those magnetic theft tags and pass them over their demagnetizer. I think you will have to do a low level in order to use them again, but I am not sure.

Bam.. thats what you need.

a swimming pool full of magnets

lol... well everyone was helpful eh?
my idea is no better
Offer some bawls @ a lan to who ever will format a hdd or 2 for ya
A big lan ya get 70-90 peeps doin 2... ya got almost 200 done!

u cant de-mag a IDE drive it wont work sector data is on the disc itself
when u low level an ide drive its not really doing it, it just 0's the disc

your best best is to get a ghost another drive onto it

Originally posted by bellringer
im looking for a way to clear hard drives when you have lots to do at one time !
maybe 20-100 or more and the fastest and cheapest way -i know this will require a special unit
any ideas what to buy and were to find a unit like this !

you guys are no real help on this one
im talking doing that many on a daily basic !

Im telling you giant magnet... oh wait you want to be able to use them afterwards... um.. a huge oven? no wait that wont work either...

why not build a computer with like a bunch of ATA controllers and then set it to format all the drives in it? I dont know much about this... but i can think up a machine that has a huge stack comming out of its top to stack HDs in.. then it just plugs into one.. formats... unplugs... then an arm pushes the bottom drive out and the rest fall one spot and the new bottom one gets plugged in and what not... and it does all this with the loud pnumatic hissing of large cylenders and smoke billiowing out the back of the unit... then sparks shoot out teh front right befor the unit ejects a drive due to the power disconnects... yea it will work i swear!

Now im just being an asshat! that should "clean" them real good!

Originally posted by Pugsley
Im telling you giant magnet... oh wait you want to be able to use them afterwards... um.. a huge oven? no wait that wont work either...

why not build a computer with like a bunch of ATA controllers and then set it to format all the drives in it? I dont know much about this... but i can think up a machine that has a huge stack comming out of its top to stack HDs in.. then it just plugs into one.. formats... unplugs... then an arm pushes the bottom drive out and the rest fall one spot and the new bottom one gets plugged in and what not... and it does all this with the loud pnumatic hissing of large cylenders and smoke billiowing out the back of the unit... then sparks shoot out teh front right befor the unit ejects a drive due to the power disconnects... yea it will work i swear!

and have a nice big techy conveyer belt that moves them along a track. (inside a anti-static/ dust/ anything else harmful room)

Although I had it in my head before I read his, I'll share the joy..

What if you did, like he said, and set up say 3 or 4 computers all with 6 PCI slots each filled with an PCI-IDE card with say 4 channels capable of two drives per channel. So that's 8 drives per slot, 8x6 = 48 drives per rig. You could also make it so the systems were mounted on board instead of in a case. Then arrange a tray over the board to support the drives vertically and have the cables running.. You'd also want to hook up an external PSU for the drives, if not several. Then you could just boot up and into DOS and format away.. Although, I don't know if there's a way to make it format each drive, one after the other or not.. I'm sure they can't all be done at the same time.. Good Luck hope it helps..

eGo

Heh, format /q

Depends what you want to spend for equipment. $300-$600? Don't recall what they were going for, but about that range.

I saw some hardware on E-bay for repairing/copying drives. I don't recall what it was called but shouldn't be hard to find though. It's been a long time since I looked at them, but probably still being sold there.

Basically you install one drive set up as you want it, software or whatever, then connect your target drives. Not sure if it does one at a time or several (might be various models). Hit the go button and in a few minutes you have a copy of your master drive. Should be pretty fast, connect target hit go, remove target install new target hit go.

I think it will also low level format or just plain wipe out the drive totally. As I recall it's used by high volume system builders, set up one master for the type system being built then get all the hard drives done in a flash for the systems from that master. Pretty sure the same equipment is used to repair drives also. Like I said been awhile since I looked at them but I think it's used to refurbish used drives also. Clean wipe and format, possibly repair bad sectors (or at least those incorrectly marked as bad)?

If they're still being sold now should be listed under hard drives on e-bay.

What'd ya do to need to do so many? Get a government contract to wipe systems before the auctions??

actually.. my machine would work... and i could build it if you got a card that allowed hot swapping of various drives... making the thing plug and unplug isnt a problem. I could build it minues the smoke and sparks and loud noises... if i had a card that can hot swap drives of various types/sizes.