[plug] WD drives coming formatted as NTFS?

[Adrian Chadd]

Check the SMART stats and see whether the disk has been on before. :)



Adrian

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009, Paul wrote:
> FWIW, I think your approach is commendable.
> 
> BTW, over the last 12 months I had new disks both in static bags an in
> those transparent plastic cases/boxes. I must admit that I've never
> looked for pre-existing filesystems on any of them - I just low-level
> format/surface check and then start using them. Maybe I ought to look
> more carefully.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> On Sun, 2009-10-25 at 13:18 +0800, Ari wrote:
> > Ari wrote:
> > > Kevin Shackleton wrote:
> > >> Might not these drives have been recovered stock from a batch of drives
> > >> set up for PC installation that never made it in the run.  Therefore
> > >> they would have been bulk copied but never actually used.  They would
> > >> have been sold off cheap and presumably bought cheap, with free mounting
> > >> brackets.
> > >>
> > >> I don't see anything wrong with that, so long as there wasn't deceptive
> > >> practice.
> > >>
> > >> Kevin
> > >>
> > >>   
> > >
> > > There was nothing to mention that the drives were not absolutely brand 
> > > new. Certainly no mounting brackets. I thought it odd that they 
> > > weren't in static bags, but I've had some manufacturers do that in the 
> > > past with drives that were brand new. This is well known retailer with 
> > > a range of drives from a variety of manufacturers.
> > I've had a few private requests for the name of this company. I am going 
> > to wait until I hear back to from the owner who I have emailed. I'm 
> > pretty pissed at this point because of the amount of time I've lost and 
> > the extra two days of downtime, but just because an employee screwed up 
> > I want to give the owner a chance to make it right and provide an 
> > assurance that it won't happen again - to anyone. I think I'm being as 
> > fair in this. Please don't think I'm snubbing the requests for the name, 
> > I just want to give the owner a chance to fix things first. I think we'd 
> > all like that chance if we were in that situation.
> > 
> > That said, I've learned quite a lot about drives and accessing data 
> > contained on them. For example, smartmontools is installed by default in 
> > FC11 and the smartctl command (with the appropriate options) allows one 
> > to examine the information stored by the drive. For example, my 'new' 
> > drives have had double the number of power cycles as I have given them...
> > _______________________________________________
> > PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> > http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> > Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
> > 	
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au

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