Hard Disk refurbishing: would like information from insiders

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phool@round · #1 Post by **phool@round** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:06 pm

I would like to know if anyone knows someone who rebuilds/refurbishes Hard Drives (2.5 laptop - Hitachi), someone who is in the industry or in the know. I have several I would like to rebuild and all are clean canidates (no head crashes). Particularly, I would like to regain or rebuild the service partitions, work partitions, heads, platter renewal, PCB repair, calibration, sector alignment and so on and who to source for parts, service and software.

Tall order, probably but it's worth it to me, I have several I'd like to rejuvinate. I'm not looking for information retreival services, they google easily.

Brad · #2 Post by **Brad** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:19 pm

Unfortunately this type of service will not be cost effective given the current price of .50c per GB for hard drive space.

I never heard of anyone offering this type of service.

Brad

phool@round · #3 Post by **phool@round** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:55 pm

Brad wrote:I never heard of anyone offering this type of service.

Until recently, I hadn't either.

http://www.nortek.on.ca/Hard%20Drive%20 ... vices.aspx

Based on your cost per Gigabyte though I've not seen a new drive that costs half of it's capacity. Most are @ .75 to a 1.00 per G and once you factor in shipping........, average example.

Don't take this the wrong way but I'm curious who you buy from? I don't buy from the source I linked but I do use them for comparison along with pricewatch, fleabay and geeks.com.

Brad · #4 Post by **Brad** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:10 am

phool@round wrote:Don't take this the wrong way but I'm curious who you buy from? I don't buy from the source I linked but I do use them for comparison along with pricewatch, fleabay and geeks.com.

I was probably too agressive in my cost ratio.

I don't have any special vendors. I wish I did.

Brad

phool@round · #5 Post by **phool@round** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:41 am

LOL.......if *IF* I find what I'm looking for I will gladly share it.

I guess from your cost suggestion I'd like to shoot for between .25 to .50 per G. As long as I can achieve disc service longevity I'll be very pleased and have rescued 7 discs from the landfill. It's just a project right now and I'm self educating to demystify it for myself mainly. I think it's possible and when I get on a roll I'm pretty stuborn........

#6 Post by **Harryc** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:17 am

phool@round wrote: http://www.nortek.on.ca/Hard%20Drive%20 ... vices.aspx

"We offer a no-charge evaluation on all repairs. Once approved, the minimum service charge for a single laptop is $189. "

That's very pricey for the average consumer. I'm willing to bet they make their money on commercial grade server drive rebuilds.

#7 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:04 am

To rejuvenate hard disks I use this program HDD Regenerator.
It has brought back quite a few 'declared dead' drives, especially Toshiba's.

phool@round · #8 Post by **phool@round** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:09 pm

Harryc wrote:That's very pricey for the average consumer. I'm willing to bet they make their money on commercial grade server drive rebuilds.

Agreed. This company is one of very few that I found. They are the market with little competition so I guess they can set the price point. Actually that's very low condsidering what was charged 10 years ago to replace one stick of RAM. Every server I touch, the discs are mirrored so I don't know why anyone would purchase this service. For me it's simply replace, rebuild the mirror and the old drives get sent to a recycler once every three months.

RealBlackStuff, I'll give the software a spin, see if I can revive one of my drives with it. I have one in mind that it might work with. Your post is honestly what I'm looking for, resources, any and all.

beeblebrox · #9 Post by **beeblebrox** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:49 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:To rejuvenate hard disks I use this program HDD Regenerator.
It has brought back quite a few 'declared dead' drives, especially Toshiba's.

I guess, it just does the low-level formatting of the drive, i.e. rewriting the sector pattern step-by-step.

You can also easily download the free tool of the individual HDD manufacturer on their support page.

Once a sector is dead, it is dead. You can rewrite but chances are low that your HDD head will read sufficient magnetic current so that the likelihood-approximation algorithm can achieve a satisfying data probability.
You can do a low-level format and a service test. Within a few weeks, months you probably have the same error in that particular sector again. For music or movies the HDD is fine. I would not store bit-important data on it.

#10 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:59 pm

I don't know the technical ins and outs, I only know that it works for me. Some of my 'recovered' HDs are still perfect after over 1 year of use. See for more details here: http://www.dposoft.net/ and click on the More Info for HDD Regenerator.

phool@round · #11 Post by **phool@round** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:59 pm

What I've found is that I have a couple of head amplifiers that are shot and a couple of PCB's too. I have one drive with a bad sector that normal utilities won't get past which I know your recomended software will work on

What I'm looking for on top of this is something that can read the PCB's. I've found one company with a PCI card that you slip a drive PCB into and it will clear and re-configure it. Mostly it's used for information restoral but can rejuvinate a dead drive as well. As soon as I get some change to rub together I'm going to purchase HDD Regenerator 1.51 because I know it will come in very handy. I actually need it now for one drive for sure although it will on fix one bad sector in trial mode - I have more than one.

I appreciate the heads up on this RBS, honest, it's a good tool.

Hard Disk refurbishing: would like information from insiders

Hard Disk refurbishing: would like information from insiders

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