A few Questions from A Laptop refurbisher

[OtterBoxing]

Hi there,

I had a few questions regarding Hard Drives, and was hoping maybe someone could point me in the right direction or offfer me some advice...

Background: I'm a small Laptop refurbisher, and am coninuously trying to learn more and more about the industry and different components of it.

As I read a bit on this forum, I begin to realize how little I know about Hard Drives.. But I'm glad that I found it, so that I can continue to learn and grow my business.

My Questions are related to the following topics: Testing, Imaging and Recertification

1) Testing - Currently I use Sentinel to test Hard Drives. I simply plug in the hard drive and if it reads over 85% health I deem this as a good hard drive and move along.

Is there a tool that anyone would suggest (preferabbly free) to test Hard Drives. The main reason I chose Sentinal originally was due to the speed and simplicty of testing, however I'm sure there are much more effective and efficient tools out there that I just don't know about.

2) Imaging - Currently I use Acronis to image an OS on to the laptops. I am begining to look into Hard Drive Duplicators, but I'm not sure if I do enough volume to justify spending tons of money on it.

I found this 1:2 Duplicator for real cheap...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ORICO-6638USJ-C-3-Plate-Hard-Drive-Duplicator-Hard-Drive-Box-/300922339207?pt=US_Drive_Enclosures_Docks&hash=item46105e7f87

Anyone have any experience with that one, or can offer an alternative for someone on a budget?

3) Recertification - I have been purchasing hard drives from comapnies that claim to be recertifying them. I spoke to someone briefly on this subject who suggested that I invest in a PC3000 if I would like to start recertifying my own hard drives. I have way too many drives that end up going to a recycler simply because of low health, or because its too slow, wont allow me to install windows, etc.

This is a tool I wouldn't mind spending quite some time learning about and investing in, as I do see oppurtunities to buy AS-IS hard drives, but am usually too afriad that I will have too many failures to justify the purchase.

I know this is a subject that requires a lot of research, but I just want to know if someone can point me in the right direction as far as equipment/tools is concerned so that I can spend my time researching the right things.

I don't need the ablity to recover data... In fact I would prefer destroying any traces of old data so that customers cant extract vendor info.

I'm sorry if I sould ignorant on the Hard Drive industry, please bare with me, I'm just hoping to learn a few things.. Thank you for your time, I really appreciate any input or feedback.

THANKS!

[falther]

HDSentinel is a nice piece of software - what you get is an overview about
drives connected to the pc - a statement built from the software based on
the drives internal SMART figures.

You could deal with eSATA ports on hot plug feature to avoid starting Windows
every time again and again for new drives to check.

Windows Vista, 7 + 8 usually should support that on eSATA ports or you
use and additional adapter for more eSATA ports.

This might be the cheapest and simplest solution. But the 85% value is
russian roulet for the end user buying a system with such a drive. It will
fail for sure after a while.

***
PC3000 is definitely a tool for data recovery specialists and not for recertification.
I bet you dont want to pay around $ 6000,- for hardware + software = a tool with
lots of very fine DR features you most probably never will use / need at all ?

The little toy for under $ 100.- isnt more than that - a toy.

I assume you want to image hdd for same laptop models - setting up one system
and then produce clone hdd for the others.
Imagine you need to clone hdd of 120GB and over - today its usually 320GB, 500GB
and sometimes up.
This toy will copy each sector and wont produce the cloning speed of a professional
tool.

Modern tools (much higher price) are able to copy those sectors (and partition info)
only who contain valid data. I.e. a basic Windows system can be cloned in 3-5 minutes.

Data only:
On "older" systems they will work in copying data in systems using standard MBR,
for todays systems (Windows 8 ) they need to recognise and transfer GPT aswell.

Complete HDD:
Forget about MBR or GPT - you´ll receive a 1:1 clone - but it takes much, much more
time.

***
Cloning systems:
There are several cloning units out there - 1:2, 1:4, 1:7, 1:9 and even 1:11
Usually they will slow down (even those with a RISC cpu) with each drive more
inserted parallel to be cloned
Prices range from € 600,- to up € 2000,- (depending of number of target hdd bays)

Testing systems:
I am not aware about a system doing solely hdd testing, but I know about units
which offer hdd testing combined with several other features - but all of them
at a much higher price you seem to be willing to spend.

Atola Disk Recycler
test, erase, recertify
can be used to check up to 4 hdd parallel. Up to 200 such units may be combined
on a LAN and controlled on one pc with software.
One can use several test procedures (scripts) to get the good hdd filtered like
from a sieve.
Lots of demo scripts are included - aswell as the editor and explanation for it
Price - about € 2600,-

or a combination:
Atola Insight USB
perfect even for deep hdd testing and for cloning of smaller hdd or data only
including GPT.
It will go far beyond the smart testing of a hdd.
Price - about € 4700,-

Atola Imager
is the perfect tool for very, very quick imaging / cloning - certainly with data
only including GPT.
Price - about € 2.800,-

More information on Atola tools can be found here: http://www.atola-europe.com
for others send a PM

+++