Is it safe to return a hard drive to the manufacturer?

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Guest

Today I ran HUTIL on a Samsung drive that my RAID controller said had
problems. I got a ton of ecc errors during the surface scan (so many
that it caused HUTIL to crash). I tried a low level format, and that
also failed with an ecc error.

Now I wonder what will happen when I send it back to Samsung. Will
they fix it and give it to someone else as a "refurbished drive"? And
will that person be able to read all of the data that I had on it?
 
Today I ran HUTIL on a Samsung drive that my RAID controller
said had problems. I got a ton of ecc errors during the surface
scan (so many that it caused HUTIL to crash). I tried a low
level format, and that also failed with an ecc error.
Click to expand...
Now I wonder what will happen when I send it back to Samsung.
Will they fix it and give it to someone else as a "refurbished drive"?
Click to expand...

Maybe, depending on what fault its got.
And will that person be able to read all of the data that I had on it?
Click to expand...

Nope. They'll erase the drive before they give it to anyone else.

If its got something flagrantly illegal on it like child
porn etc, it would be safer to just destroy the drive.
 
Previously [email protected] said:
Today I ran HUTIL on a Samsung drive that my RAID controller said had
problems. I got a ton of ecc errors during the surface scan (so many
that it caused HUTIL to crash). I tried a low level format, and that
also failed with an ecc error.
Click to expand...

You cannot low-level format modern disks. It is just another surface
scan.
Now I wonder what will happen when I send it back to Samsung. Will
they fix it and give it to someone else as a "refurbished drive"? And
will that person be able to read all of the data that I had on it?
Click to expand...

Well, typically refubished drives are not actually fixed, but
non-defective drives sent in for warranty replacement. Depending
on the problem, your drive might be just blanked and given
to somebody else or disposed of. Disposal can mean shredering,
landfill, or sold of to somebody.

If in doubt, pass on the warranty replacement adn physically
destroy the drive. Opening it and bending the platters is
quite enough. Even only opening and destroying the heads leaves
very low residual risk.

Arno
 
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