pro-workstation

[RudedogTx]

Hello everyone,
Is there anyone out there who has or worked with the Proworkstation? For those of you wondering what it is...well it is a machine that fixes hard drives that have seen it's last days.

The problem that I have encountered is- once I format and recertify a hard drive on the machine I install back into the computer. I found that when I boot up with a start disk and go to FDISK it shows that it needs to be partitioned and formatted...this is when I run into problems. Some hard drives can be partitioned and some not. The one's that can be partitioned and then try to format it but it comes with an error message with "bad media disk unusable."... Now I know these hard drives are bad because before I put them up I ran a Scandisk and it showed many bad sectors and could not be formatted. Here is where the machine comes in...I thought, well I can get this machine in hope of reviving some of these hard drives. So if anyone can shine some light on my situation I would appreciate it..

I know I will need to get rid of these bad drives but..

thanks,

[bassman]

Hello Rudedog,
One of the things that causes drives to die is a damaged read/write head. Every time the hard drive runs, it damages the disk a bit more. No machine in the world is going to fix that head or the damaged disk.
I don't know if you are old enough to remember vinyl records but there used to make a liquid product that claimed to fix scratches in vinyl. It didn't really fix the record, more so, it filled in the scratch and allowed the needle to pass over that spot. That is basicly what this machine is doing but it may just be that some of these drives are just too damaged and will continue to progress.

Good luck
Frank

"EDIT"- Is THIS (http://www.driveduplicators.com/) the machine you are talking about? Be sure to read the last line above the "Sales" e-mail link near bottom.

[RudedogTx]

Yep...that is the machine. And, I do remember the old 45 records. I played many of them..hehehehe...Anyways, you are probably correct in your statement. However, I have managed to bring one drive back from the dead. I had it hooked up first in the computer and it showed 55 bad sectors on it during the scandisk. It showed being fixed. I did it again a couple of hours later and still showed the same bad sectors. So I took the buger' and put it on the machine (45 minutes) and plugged it back in the computer and ran a scandisk. It showed zero bad sectors! Since then I have formatted and installed windows. So far the buger' is holding up..

Interesting hee..hee..

[Steve]

Hey, I've got one of those! I haven't used it much though. I've been finding that the manufacturers utilities work well and are easier and quicker to use.

[RudedogTx]

Yeah Steve. The utilities do work fine and I for one like to be able to have other options. I started this thread to find out who else had this machine and what kind of experience they have had on it. I appreciate everyone's input..thanks!