In my recent vintage Apple haul, there are at least 120 loose hard drives. A bunch of them are attached to Macintosh LC-style brackets:



And a bunch more are attached to hard drive sleds:



...and that's just a few of them, there are two more crates jam-packed with drives!

I've had requests to model and 3D print both LC brackets and sleds, which makes me think that there is demand for these. The hard drives, I am unsure about, especially considering that the fantastic BlueSCSI is available for about $25! Further, shipping a small bracket and screws will be very cheap, but a heavy hard drive will add cost.

On the other hand, I know that it is best practice to check old storage media for lost or missing software that has not been archived. Collectively, we could probably do that, but I cannot take on that task. Divesting the pile is already turning out to be a huge job.

And then, there's the tricky part: I don't know what is on these drives, and I don't want to be liable for what could be on them. I don't want to be paranoid, but I also want to be smart. If you have experience with situations like this, I'd love to hear your advice about how to handle all of these hard drives.

Are they worth shipping? Should I be concerned about what is on them, and potentially and inadvertently distributing either private or illegal material? Should I be concerned about the archival of what is on them?

Quantum drives are a pain to restore, but it is possible (what with the sticked up bumpers inside). Non-Quantum drives should be generally okay as long as they haven't had something catastrophic happen to them.

The brackets, cages, short scsi cables, square 4pin to molex are all worth keeping/selling. I don't think there would be any issues by just having them - if you knew something was illegal on it and kept, didnt report it, or something along those lines that would be a different story. IANAL.

Shipping is hard, but if you wanted to throw a few drives in with a computer you're sending me I'd be happy to go through em and wipe it after.

If you still were nervious take off all the hardware and bring them to a place that will dban them and recycle them. (I know freegeek does this, but not sure in your area).

A medium FRB is $16.10, so, if people want the drives, that's a good way of shipping them.

i wonder if archive.org would be interested in them. they do often take in disks to image and archive them. for preservation. ¯\_([katakana-letter-tu])_/¯
https://twitter.com/textfiles jason scott talks about doing that kind of thing. but i don't know how interested they are in HDD ...

>> Patrick said:

i wonder if archive.org would be interested in them. they do often take in disks to image and archive them. for preservation. ¯\_([katakana-letter-tu])_/¯ https://twitter.com/textfiles jason scott talks about doing that kind of thing. but i don't know how interested they are in HDD ... Click to expand...

just poking around at archive.org
https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-internet-archive/

and

https://help.archive.org/help/frequently-asked-questions/

I've watched jason scott just image floppy after floppy But idk if they are interested in hard drives. they do have an email you could use to ask.

because something rare and interesting MIGHT be on one of them....
but if it was me, i might just go with eric suggested and dban them some how.

I am in dire need of a couple of those SCSI bridge/edge connectors! Could you be bothered to sell a couple to me? I'm in Idaho, so perhaps a local pickup is feasible?

My inner IT/infosec engineer says that the drives themselves need to be either wiped or destroyed. Yes, historical preservation is important, but so is protecting personal information...and the likelihood of finding rare software on a random hard drive is low. As @eric mentioned, some places will take them, and if you can't find somewhere locally, Free Geek Twin Cities would definitely accept them (working drives will get DBAN'd and reused, dead drives get destroyed).

@PotatoFi
I'm not a fan of acronyms because I almost always have no idea what they mean. But since "DBAN" keeps getting repeated in this thread with no explanation, I wanted to chime in with the info I Googled up just now:


Seems to be a way of securely deleting drive content.

>> joethezombie said:

I am in dire need of a couple of those SCSI bridge/edge connectors! Could you be bothered to sell a couple to me? I'm in Idaho, so perhaps a local pickup is feasible? Click to expand...

Yes! DM me - First Class Mail for items like this is always less than $5.

>> This Does Not Compute said:

My inner IT/infosec engineer says that the drives themselves need to be either wiped or destroyed. Yes, historical preservation is important, but so is protecting personal information...and the likelihood of finding rare software on a random hard drive is low. As @eric mentioned, some places will take them, and if you can't find somewhere locally, Free Geek Twin Cities would definitely accept them (working drives will get DBAN'd and reused, dead drives get destroyed). Click to expand...

I think you're right. @eric told me to keep one of the SCSI cards out of the pile, and I let them all leave yesterday... so I ordered a SCSI card for my Blue and White G3. I think I can set up a drive-wiping workstation in the garage and get the job knocked out. If the drives fail, I'll send them straight to recycling. The ones that nobody here wants will get donated to The Reusuem in Boise, which is similar to Free Geek but does not focus on computers.

>> JDW said:

@PotatoFi I'm not a fan of acronyms because I almost always have no idea what they mean. But since " DBAN " keeps getting repeated in this thread with no explanation, I wanted to chime in with the info I Googled up just now: Darik's Boot and Nuke - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org Seems to be a way of securely deleting drive content. Click to expand...

I think a DBAN-like application is what I need. I'll bet there is something for Mac OS 9.2 that I can use. I'll have to do some research when my SCSI card arrives.

Always happy to have more working 50 pin SCSI drives! Good luck on the wiping!

The hacked version of HD SC Setup 7.3.5 does work under 9.2.2.

If you got a 2940UW or U2W card, make sure you don't have it installed when/if you decide to boot up under OS X. For some reason or another, the 2940UW I had for my G3 did not let the computer boot correctly under 10.4.11. The 29160N that I currently have works fine under OS X. I'm keeping that card, even though I'm in the process of getting the computer sent down to @cc333, as soon as they send the other half of their payment for it.

Definitely keep and sell the adapters! When I purchased my Performa 550 the owner insisted on removing the hard drive which is entirely understandable. They did not realize the adapter went with the computer. Convinced them to remove it and give it to me. Totally worth a second trip to pick it up.

I did try to convince them to let me have the hard drive as it was still working. Offered to wipe it with them witnessing it setup in their driveway but they couldn't be convinced. Makes me wonder about their story.