Need advice on hard drive/optical drive testing software

You could look at the following article on the MacRumors web site:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1544280&highlight=definitive+list

That's a good write up. The author simply states what's available and to some extent what the products do. If you follow the thread it degernates (yet again...even on that site) into a MacKeeper food fight. Let's hope the same doesn't happen here.

Most of that is for HDs. Some of the tools, like Scannerz, Disk Warrior, and smartmontools are very specific, meaning they specialize in one type of testing. Others like Drive Genius and TechTool Pro are multi-purpose, and their price reflects it.

Of all those products, I don't know of one single one that does optical drive tests. I suspect the reason is that their susceptible to media quality problems, meaning one DVD RW media may be low quality and another might be high quality. That's a real problem when dealing with optical drives.

If I were you I'd take some known good optical media of various types and just test them in optical drives. Another thing you might want to try to make your life easier is to put the test software on one system, then put each unit you want to test into target mode and test it as an external drive.

As far as drive testing goes, the best bet for you is probably Scannerz Lite. It's low cost, and it's basically for someone that just wants to verify that their drive is working, and their products have a good reputation. If I understand it properly, it's designed for people that just want to check their disk and if it's bad, take it to an Apple store.

Before you start yelling at me about "it's not cost effective to take it to the Apple store" hear me out. The systems you're testing aren't worth that much money, and they're old. If a problem is detected with the drive you should be tossing it, not attempting to repair it. Secondly, the full version of Scannerz is intended for people that want to do extensive testing to isolate a whole host of problems with systems. How much time are you going to take testing and repairing a system that's worth maybe $200.00? Take your hourly wages into account when figuring that out.

With respect to optical drives I would suggest the following:

1. Get commercial disks (music, video, etc.) ranging from CDs to DVDs as applicable and see if the optical drives will consistently read them. If they won't, just identify or replace the optical drives. If they can't read commercial they won't read anything.
2. If it passes the above test, take some known, good R/W disks as applicable to the type of the optical drive and see if the optical drive (OD) can read them. If it can it's even better, but don't be surprised if they're finicky. Just report the status of the OD to a potential buyer realistically.
3. Finally, if it passes 1 and 2 above, try an actual write test if applicable. If it can pass that then the drive's likely barely been used. If not, just report the facts to the potential buyer.

People often think the hard drive is the worst thing on a system but that isn't true. HD's get hammered every minute they're in use, and on the average they last years. R/W optical drives do not have that level of quality, especially the DVD R/W drives. They just don't last. After going through several DVD R/W units after only a few thousand hours of use, they all failed. The lasers on them have a short lifespan. From experience, the symptoms of R/W optical drive problems are as follows:

1. First, the most complex type of format starts failing during write operations. If it's a DVD R/W unit, this will mean that attempts to write a DVD will start to fail.
2. Second, the READ operations start to fail on more complex operations with DVDs you've writtten yourself. Commercial CDROMs and DVDROMs won't have a problem, but anything you actually burned will be problematic and/or erratic.
3. The final stage of failure occurs when the drive won't even read commercial CDROMs or DVDROMs. At that point, it's a total loss.

IMHO the biggest problem you face will be the optical drive, not the hard drive. The systems you're using require optical media for OS re-installation (Snow Leopard or earlier) which you apparently have, but it's useless if the OD doesn't work. I'd be willing to bet you only about 10-20% of those units have HD problems, if even that, but about 70-90% of them will have OD problems. I suspect you'll need to find a good, low cost source for ODs to replace the bad ones. You cannot ethically sell units to people with media that requires an optical drive for re-installation or managment if the OD doesn't work. I know I'd be ticked off as a consumer if someone tried pulling a stunt like that on me! I'm not saying you're going to do that, but just expect a lot of returns and a loss of money if you do.

Moral of the story: Be honest!!

Getting rid of optical drives is the best thing Apple ever did. They're too unreliable. Too bad you're stuck with systems that require them.

MrJavaDeveloper

Getting rid of optical drives is the best thing Apple ever did.

Apple hasnt "got rid of" optical drives, theyre on the Pro and the Superdrive.

😊

Likely youre using junky blank DVD media, but the optical drives are very reliable.

MrJavaDeveloper wrote:

Getting rid of optical drives is the best thing Apple ever did. They're too unreliable.

Right.

Apple got rid of optical drives from iMac,and Mac mini.

MacBook Pro retina and MacBook Air were released without optical drives..

I beg to differ, Mr./Ms. PlotinusVeritas. The current Mac Pro is by all standards an old design (2005/6) which was probably just about the time the items the OP is describing came out. The new one, like all newer sytems has no optical drives.

I base my experience with optical drives on my own use with Apple systems. Not one single one of them ever lasted over a year. And by the way, it's not an "Apple Thing" this happens to all optical drives. CDROM and DVDROM drives appear problem free, or at least as problem free as one would expect, but few units, except really really old units have them installed.

You can beg to differ, but youre wrong none the less. 😊

As for the superdrive, its had 2 makers for Apple, Hitachi and Panasonic (current), Apple never made optical drives specifically.

Im burning about 400 DVD blanks a month, ......never an issue unless I run into a bad blank, of course im using the Pro grade Taiyo Yuden disks.

MrJavaDeveloper

. The new one, like all newer sytems has no optical drives..........but few units, except really really old units have them installed.

the new RETINA has no optical, the NEW macbook Pro released mid-2012 has an optical drive.

You calling mid-2012 "really really old" ? Interesting 😁

See macbook Pro below current, updated 2012 with superdrive.

Optical drives (other than movies, CDs etc.) serve a very vital tool for data archives on 100-year professional DVD blanks which cannot be erased or affected by EM fields like hard drives can be.

Does anyone know what year or model they switched from ATA optical drives to SATA optical drives

The Mac Pro 4,1 (2009) was the first Mac Pro to ship with SATA Optical drives. Previous models had two SATA Optical Disk Drive connectors hidden on the motherboard, but no cables for them. The bays were wired with 40-pin ribbon cables for ATA/IDE.

FireWire enclosure ... cheap

That is an oxymoron. If you want cheap, use slower USB-2. If you want FireWire, they are not so cheap. Most of the systems you descibed may only require FireWire-400, so there may be some models for a bit less.

You seem convinced that Macs will not boot from USB. I do not understand why you say that.

I'm sure PPC fans will clobber me over the head for saying this, but if I were you I would just evaluate any and all PPC units, generate a list of defects, if any, and then sell the units "as is." Some of the PPC units you list aren't worth much, and I assume you're doing this for a company. Take into account your hours and hourly wages, and estimate how much it will cost you to bring these units up to what seems to be your idea of a sellable state. My guess is that it will, assuming problems are present here and there, cost you more, possibly much more, to get these units working ideally than the units themselves are worth. Another option might be to see if you can donate them to something like a tech school, community college, or whatever and write them off.

The USB Flash drive idea would work OK on a newer unit but there are some things you're overlooking. First, Phoenix is licensed software, which means you need to purchase a copy of it for each unit. In order for it to extract its own image and overlay it onto a hard drive means it needs to be present. I don't remember the cost but I know it's low (10 bucks, 15 bucks?) and then there's the cost of the USB Flash media as well. There's probably 30 bucks already. Now add in repairs. How much will it cost you paying staff member to do that? Phoenix can do all that stuff, but that itself will take time. For a hobbyist or someone that just wants there system up and running, it may be OK, but for a company? I can't see it.

Based on some of your comments, I think your estimates of the values of some of the PPC systems you're talking about are somewhat optimistic. Sure, you might get $100 for a 1.33 or 1.5GHz PowerBook, but an eBay check showed me some of the lower speed systems are selling for more like $30-$50 dollars. In fact, even dual core G5 PowerMacs are selling in the $80-$200 range.

As far as the Intels go, they still sell for a fair amount and any CoreDuo unit is still quite capable. There are a fair number of people that haven't quite bought into the newer is always better notion that remain devotees of Snow Leopard, and their love of that OS may start, ironically, to put a premium on their prices. I have an old CoreDuo Mac Mini that I turned into a little entertainment center. I hooked the audio output up to an old amp, attached an LCD monitor and speakers and now I use it as basically a web based entertainment system in my home office.

I'd focus more on the Intel units which are likely to have fewer problems and let the PPC units go as is. If I'm not mistaken, some of those PPC 867MHz units are already 10 years old. Do you really want to try and sell something like that with a warranty?

In any case, good luck.

PS: FSE is slick. We use it to monitor web stuff all the time.

A quick check on e-bay, not that that's the best place on Earth to buy anything indicates PPC PowerBooks (12") running $30-$150, PowerMacs running $75-$200.

Yeah....I'd say bagging the PPC units and focusing on Intels is the way to go. Give the PPCs to a tech school, church, or community college.

It IS a shame, but so many schools today have better computing equipment in the classroom than I have at home. I found I could not give older stuff away -- there have been too many Internet-based advances in the last few years, and a lot of schools are keeping up pretty well.

R.K.Orion wrote:

Most of the drives seem OK, but one of them is reproducing what Scannerz calls an "irregularity" of about 5.5 seconds. This is repeatable. I assume this is a weak sector, right?

I guess now I'll have to figure out who to donate the units to. It seems a shame to me to have to give stuff like this away when I know full well I could get it into 100% working order, most of it anyway.

...it just seems a shame.😢

Yes, the 5.5 seconds repeatable irregularity is a weak sector. It can either be damaged from a light head crash or the media has a defect. Those can be a pain in the posterior to troubleshoot because old drives like that didn't necessarily re-map them. If the drive could read it, as far as it was concerned the sector was OK. Some of the timeouts and SMART reporting on those drives was abysmal. You could probably try and correct (map out) the drive by zeroing it, but don't be surprised if it's still there when your done. I would suspect that you should conclude that drive is likely on its way out.

Regarding the old PPC units, all isn't necessarily lost. I have an old 15" Titanium that I take on the road with me with my other "real" computer. The Titanium servers one and only one purpose: To play DVD-ROMS while I'm in the motel! After all these years the thing still works and personally I'm amazed, but it is getting to the point of being a bit unreliable, but then if I'm not mistaken it's 11 years old too. If the thing gets damaged, I haven't really lost that much.

Just because the units are old doesn't mean they're useless. Keep in mind 10 years ago people were doing things like running web servers, print servers, or backup storage systems on lesser systems. You likely don't need the latest and greatest devices on the market to handle light weight tasks. If you're clever, you can likely think up a lot of uses for some of those systems.🙂

A Hard Drive drive spinning at 7200 RPM turns the platters 120 times a second. That does not produce a signal with 5.5 seconds periodicity.