Last minute advice before I RMA

[stncttr908]

Alright, basically I'd appreciate it if I could get some last minute advice on my situation before I go ahead and RMA my WD800JB.

I believe the drive to be dead. Performance slowed to a crawl the last few days, and now the drive will fail to initialize. All I am greeted with is a lovely clicking noise when it tries to spin up. Is there any way to wipe my drive clean before I send it back? I don't want someone getting it working and then having access to a lot of my personal information. Is it worth trying in another system? Or is the drive FUBAR and I shouldn't be concerned? Thank you very much in advance.

 

[egale]

If you can't fdisk the drive, it is dead. I doubt they would go through the trouble of trying to recover the data. You could go that route yourself but it is expensive. The only thing I can think of is getting a very powerful magnet and trying to erase the drive that way. Most probably you are safe just sending it back.

 

[MDE]

It should be fine. Just make sure you pack the drive correctly so they don't send it right back.

 

[EeyoreX]

I also doubt WD cares what's on your hard drive. If they get it working, and refurb it, they will write zeros to the drive and erase your data before reselling it. If they don't get it working, I am sure they trash the drives. Either way, I can't see WD (or any manufacturer) wasting time, money, or effort to retrieve data on someones hard drive just because they are curious. Also, I am willing to bet that if you were to take a "very powerful magnet", or use any other method to physically destroy the data/drive, you will void your warranty and you can kiss your replacement drive goodbye.

\Dan