What are "Refurbished" hard drives?

I often see "Refurbished" hard drives being sold on ebay. What do they
refurbish? As far as I know, once a HDD has problems with the platters
or heads, they are trash. About the only part that can be repaired or
replaced is the circuit board, but how often do they go bad? (probably
very seldom). So what do they mean by "Refurbished"?

I wont buy them, especially those that say "seller refurbished". I may
consider those that say "Factory refurbished", but I never have. I
usually just pass them up, in favor of a new drive, or on occasion a
used one. (I have actually had good luck with used ones from these
computer recycle places).

wrote:
I often see "Refurbished" hard drives being sold on ebay. What do they
refurbish? As far as I know, once a HDD has problems with the platters
or heads, they are trash. About the only part that can be repaired or
replaced is the circuit board, but how often do they go bad? (probably
very seldom). So what do they mean by "Refurbished"?

I wont buy them, especially those that say "seller refurbished". I may
consider those that say "Factory refurbished", but I never have. I
usually just pass them up, in favor of a new drive, or on occasion a
used one. (I have actually had good luck with used ones from these
computer recycle places).

There's nothing you can do to "freshen" a hard drive.

All you can do, is pretend to test it :-)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Refurbishe...7629610/g.html

Paul

On Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:55:48 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I often see "Refurbished" hard drives being sold on ebay. What do they
refurbish? As far as I know, once a HDD has problems with the platters
or heads, they are trash. About the only part that can be repaired or
replaced is the circuit board, but how often do they go bad? (probably
very seldom). So what do they mean by "Refurbished"?

I wont buy them, especially those that say "seller refurbished". I may
consider those that say "Factory refurbished", but I never have. I
usually just pass them up, in favor of a new drive, or on occasion a
used one. (I have actually had good luck with used ones from these
computer recycle places).

There's nothing you can do to "freshen" a hard drive.

All you can do, is pretend to test it :-)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Refurbishe...7629610/g.html

Paul

Thats a good article. That helped me understand this a lot better.

One more comment: I bought one of those "White Label" drives, listed as
NEW. When I got it, it said 120gb (That is what I ordered). When it came
time to partition and format it, it turned out to be a 40gb drive.

The seller gave me a refund and told me to keep the drive., so I got a
free 40gb drive, but not what I wanted. I wont buy those White Label
drives anymore. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that they are
manufracrure rejects and they just stick any label on them. I just buy
new ones now, or on occasion a used one, if the price is real good. (And
I thououghly test them).