Where do all the HDD covers disappear to?

[Robbyrobot]

Anyone who has dealt with used Thinkpads for any length of time notices how often they are offered without the HDD, and particularly without the plastic HDD cover.

This situation leads to a high demand for HDD covers, which are in short supply, which in turn leads to positively breathtaking prices for what is in effect a small piece of plastic.

I'm just wondering where all the HDD covers that are missing from used Thinkpads go...

My guess is that when a Thinkpad is decommissioned in a company or government agency, the HDD is removed together with the tray and cover, and the Thinkpad is then sold to a dealer for resale. This would also explain the number of used Thinkpads with unknown supervisor passwords that are bought and sold - I might add not by "thieves", but by perfectly honest people.

So if this is the case, the company or government agency now has tens or even hundreds of HDDs in their trays with the HDD covers attached. What do they do with these?

Any economically-minded Thinkpadder would immediately say, "secure erase the drives and sell the lot". But companies and government agencies may not think this way and may not be happy with anything less than total physical destruction of the HDD - the one way to ensure really total security.

If this is the case, presumably the "innocent" trays and HDD covers are destroyed along with the HDDs.

But somewhere, there must be a cache of removed HDDs with trays and covers awaiting destruction, and someone within the organization must be able to remove the totally harmless trays and covers for the benefit of the Thinkpad community.

As large as our Thinkpad community is, it surely includes someone like that. And if he or she sees this, I'd like to hear comments on the possibility of reducing the shortage of HDD covers that leads to such extremely high prices for them.

What do you think?

[rkawakami]

Some of them get "re-cycled" and appear on eBay, usually as single pieces, sometimes two or three. Other sellers appear to have a source in China where either the original covers are obtained or a knockoff made:

Lot of 40 T2x covers

Some others are unclear where the get the covers (and caddies and screws) but they might fall into the group you mention (gov't/industry disposed system) since you can find these "sales":

Lot of 100 T2x sets
Lot of 100 T4x sets
Lot of 100 T30 sets
Lot of 100 X2x sets

I recently purchased 10 sets for the T23s from this seller after I made an offer (I did not pay a total of $67 for the lot):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0131838206

[Robbyrobot]

I recently purchased 10 sets for the T23s from this seller after I made an offer (I did not pay a total of $67 for the lot):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0131838206

Ah, yes... dear old wibony

Nice guy and very customer-friendly, but unfortunately the pricing on less common covers (I bought a A22p 15" cover from him) is a good deal higher .