Broken disk drive but don't want to return

earthstorm

Fosterdog wrote: »

All you need is a caddy or another external drive to act as a caddy, you can pick them up for £5, I keep one in the cupboard for when I need it.

For someone who works in IT you really don't seem to have any clue at all about these things. You don't need to be a hard dive specialist to know this stuff it is the most basic IT hardware knowledge. If I were your employer I'd have serious concerns over your ability to do your job if you find such simple and basic tasks to be above your level of expertise.

shows how much you know.

the 2 highlighted parts dont always go together.

There are various branches of IT that the employees dont need to know anything about hardware.

Companies such as Dell have have an IT department that only employs software techs that dont do any hardware work

custardy

earthstorm wrote: »

shows how much you know.

the 2 highlighted parts dont always go together.

There are various branches of IT that the employees dont need to know anything about hardware.

Companies such as Dell have have an IT department that only employs software techs that dont do any hardware work

It was the OP who mentioned it

I work in IT so know the reality of information security.

So if they dont 'know' hardware and didnt have a software encryption solution
then why mention it?

tinkerbell28

custardy wrote: »

It was the OP who mentioned it



So if they dont 'know' hardware and didnt have a software encryption solution
then why mention it?

This is true. People say ohh I work in IT, like it is relevant and they have the capability to do xyz, then say they don't. So I work in IT is irrelevant.

That said those who work in software and networking, etc. Generally do know the basics of testing a hard drive and encrypting etc. Without making it into something only spy services do.

Fosterdog

earthstorm wrote: »

shows how much you know.

the 2 highlighted parts dont always go together.

There are various branches of IT that the employees dont need to know anything about hardware.

Companies such as Dell have have an IT department that only employs software techs that dont do any hardware work

You don't have to work with the hardware to have a basic understanding of it, although with your given example I'd love to see how anyone can work with software without working with hardware, considering the software has to be installed on hardware in the first place. If Dell do have these Software Techs they still need to know about hardware, either to design their software or to offer help and support with it. They at least need to know what the minimum and recommended system requirements are even if they are just a software salesperson.

shaun_from_Africa

bod1467 wrote: »

Hence the "strong magnet" comment earlier in this thread.

Another option available for a strong magnet is a local scrap dealer.
They often have extremely big electromagnets for sorting out steel and iron, and they might be willing to give your drive a few minutes under the magnet for the price of a couple of drinks.

Charliezoo

Low level formatting and 3 levels of zero.

Don't ask me what that means but my IT consultant friend says this is what he does before selling on his own hard drives. I guess you'd need to find someone capable of doing this - if you work in IT maybe a colleague could help you out.

vuvuzela

Charliezoo wrote: »

Low level formatting and 3 levels of zero.

Don't ask me what that means but my IT consultant friend says this is what he does before selling on his own hard drives. I guess you'd need to find someone capable of doing this - if you work in IT maybe a colleague could help you out.

That is a straightforward thing to do, *as long as the drive spins up and works*, which isn't the case for the OP.