So i have a chance to get 10 hard drives over $100. most are 30GB and over.(this is a auction as a local shop here). i was told there might be some functionality or cosmetic problems with a few. My question is: for the drives with funct. problems, cant most of them be fixed by formatting? or will some just be a no hope? lol

i mean alittle over $100, sorry

Not an easy question to answer, it would depend on what is meant by "functionality problems".

If BIOS simply does not recognize the drive, functionality would be zero and formatting wouldn't do a thing since it would not be possible. If it's a matter of corrupted data then formatting might be just what the Dr ordered...