Re: [tlug] Dealing with a possibly busted external HD

["Daniel A. Ramaley" <daniel.ramaley@example.com>]

On 2017-03-17 02:59, Claus Aranha wrote:
> I'd like to clean it up before throwing it away to make sure someone
> more hardware savvy than me cannot recover anything. Any suggestions?

At work we use a drill. Just drill a hole through the drive, then send
it to recycling. Takes just a few seconds.

> * The disk dying after 4 years of inactivity seems to kinda defeat
> the purpose of a backup disk :-/ any suggestion on how to avoid this 
> happening in the future?

Does it still spin? If left for long periods of time, drives will
sometimes not spin up. I think it is because oil in the bearings
sublimates away over time, or possibly because the drive heads stick too
firmly to the platters over time. (I've read multiple explanations for
the cause of drive stiction; not sure which is correct.) If this was the
problem, to avoid it happening in the future just power on the drive
every so often (maybe semi-annually?) and let it spin for an hour or two.

__
Daniel Ramaley | Server Engineer 2
Information Technology Services | Drake University
T: +1 (515) 271-4540
W: http://its.drake.edu/