Hey all,
I have recently gotten a few thousand drives of various functionality in stock. Many seem to be good. I am looking for a tool that I can use to quickly diagnose the drives, but be more thorough than just seeing if it IDs.

My ideal software would:
See if the drive IDs.
Test a few million sectors at roughly 10% intervals across the drive.
Give statistics of errors encountered on the LBAs it does check.
Be able to see if the drive has been wiped.
Be able to wipe the drive.
Run unmonitored from start to final stats.

If anyone uses anything that meets some or most of those criteria, please let me know. I've got a methodology that works well using my PC-3000 but it seems like overkill. Plus, I am getting enough drives that I could probably use a few more computers to speed the workflow.

Thanks!

You have some choices on this one. In software you can try MHDD this one can do quite a few things.

In Hardware you can chose from the following they all can do this one for you but they are not free and you will have to pay for them and they are not cheap.

1. SD tools can do this one
2. Atola can do this one.
3. ACE UDMA PC3K can do this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini

poehere,
Thanks for he reply. I don't mind spending money on functioning tools. PC-3K is what I'm currently using to do this drive screening. I don't mind paying for software to do this, but I didn't want to spend as much as another PC-3K would run. I figure I could use the PC-3K that I do have to try to fix firmware problems to get a few more working drives out of it.

I was hoping for a less expensive tool to use for the screening, not the fixing. Maybe looking for security erase on this less expensive tool was a bridge too far.

That said, I've not played with Atola before. Maybe I'll check that out.

Thanks!

Have a look to this link: http://www.atola-europe.com/index.php?page=diagnose-2

If you are interested, contact Ji2, the agent for USA

***

I use the unit the whole day, cant imagine working without it:

Its the quickest way to get an overview about a hdd, and no need to switch off
and on a pc for the next drive being connected / tested.

+++

I know what you need BytesBack, but I "WAS" writing an application to do this as you mentioned. And I got all the low level C code, custom windows drivers and even someone emailed me some wrappers they made for VS..
I was faced with a similar problem with testing hundreds of HDD's - It seems to have potential. But - the main problem could be the BIOS- if 1 HDD of the entire array goes busy-- it stops the whole process... and the testing would "freeze" across the board, ehhh -- maybe get something similar to PC3K Card from china (usually called diagnostic card or something) that is not a clone or fake, its just a stand alone IDE bios that you could manipulate your self, but it also has to be of a certain type.. i think the best pc mothebaord where the intel 845 chipset based ; where you could address the ide dma directly - but that seemed to be a one off thing..

I tried virtual machine approach-- but that is limited by software straight away never mind drivers or bios.

I think a really simple solution would be a few cheapo PC's with winbl0ws XP and some usb hubs and many usb to ide/sata -- and lots of manual work.. and 1 trainee ..ehhh:(

Maybe when I get another ton of HDD's i will attempt to write some thing simple and not too low level to be automatic(in a sense of having 4-8 or 12 hdds scanning at the same time using a spread technique).. but i am too busy at the moment.. soz

The Atola Insight looks goods though

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It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
Free Solutions
Picasaweb- Pictures and movies | Dropbox - Documents and other..

there are other options

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

DKC from SD can help you to test the disks and wipe data on them.

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Sistrum Data Recovery
http://www.sistrum.mk/en

Yea - one by one.. if you have one DCK only I think we talking about mass testing here

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It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
Free Solutions
Picasaweb- Pictures and movies | Dropbox - Documents and other..

It will be same with Atola or PC3000 or designated PC one by one. Only your idea for trainee will help a lot.
Or here is one solution http://www.mediaduplicationsystems.com/ ... y-2025.htm price???

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Sistrum Data Recovery
http://www.sistrum.mk/en

For us, every drive that is introduced into our inventory, good or bad, is both erased and scanned with MHDD. We don't want to make assumptions that the drive is wiped from front to back, nor do want want to assume that random sectors imply that the rest of the sectors are good.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery