How to Test and Wipe a Retro IDE Hard Disk Drive

Although wiping/testing a Retro IDE hard disk drive is relatively simple, not everyone will know where to start and not everyone will do it the same way!

Some just do a quick format (not the best way), other may even do a full format (still not the best way) but I test any hard disk drives I get from Car Boot Sales or eBay by using Active KillDisk as it's (currently) Free for Personal Use and in this short video I will show you what I do...

Scanning 21 IDE Hard Disks For Errors

Today I have spent most of the day watching Doctor Who with Martha Jones as the companion whilst scanning 21 IDE hard disk drives I purchased off of eBay for errors and bad sectors:

• 10 Dead or Alive But Clunking and Not Detected By Windows
• 2 Alive and Just About Kicking But Had Some Bad Sectors
• 9 Passed With Flying Colours!

2-Power BNOS Universal Power Adapters and CF to IDE Adapters

More shopping!!!

I shall use these Compact Flash to IDE adapters to replace the original hard disk drives that have come with some of the laptops I have purchased as I've a load of cheap CF cards I got from CEX and I'd rather they wore out than the original HDDs.

I store my laptops and power adapters (all labelled up to which laptop they belong) in two different boxes/tubs so these brand new old stock 2-Power Universal Laptop AC Adapters are going to save a lot of time messing about!

Floppy Disks, Doom and Some Compact Flash Cards

Today's haul is a good one as I've received a couple of Brand New (Old Stock) factory sealed boxes of Floppy Disks:

What do I need all those (very) old Compact Flash cards for, they're in MB and not GB?!

For use with this of course! 

Compact Flash cards are basically IDE so you don't need a fancy adapter with a microchip in it doing some jiggery-pokery, it's simply connects the appropriate pin on the adapter to the correct output on the IDE connector so they are ideal for use on Retro/Vintage laptops.

As 486 laptops tended to have hard disk drives of just a few MegaBytes (MB) then I've had to snap up as many low capacity Compact Flash cards as I could - all from my current favourite place, CeX where (including postage) I didn't pay more than £2.50 per card.