[Tfug] Removable carrier in USB case?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Zack,

> >> I find that about 1 in 10 drives has some sort of error
> >> that results in DBAN not completing all the way.
> >
> > Really?  "old drives"?
> 
> old/new doesn't matter really.  My perception is that
> large capacity drives tend to fail more often, but I have 
> no hard data so that might be just my own personal chagrin
> that a large drive is not usable.

The "failed" large drives that I have rescued have usually
been OK.  Bad formatting, etc.  Disk manufacturers claim
the percentage of "defective" drives returned for repair
diagnosed as "No Defect Found" is a staggering number (30%?).

Meanwhile, a good night's sleep brings the revelation:
external CD-ROM enclosure probably only supports LBA28!
That would be large enough to handle a CD.  And a DVD.
Yet crap out (at 128GB) on a big fixed disk!

(I assume the electronics in the enclosure impose some
constraints on access to the physical device.  I.e., they
decide how to talk to the IDE interface and what constitutes
a "block address", etc.  So, if they only were designed with
LBA28 in mind -- since CD's never need more -- then
they may predate/ignore wider LBA's!  But, I don't
know enough about the internals of USB to comment for
sure... :< )

Happy Tday, folks!