A retired tech in Reno told me he stopped trusting CrystalDiskInfo on used drives and I blew it off

Vera Martin · 2026-10-03T02:05:05.217968+00:00

He ran a repair shop in Reno for 22 years and told me last month that SMART data is useless on a drive that's been wiped or sitting on a shelf. I shrugged it off until a customer brought in a WD Blue with 1,200 hours that died 4 days after I installed it in her tower. I lost $85 on the swap and she lost her tax files because I didn't run a full surface scan first. Now I run a write test on every used drive before it leaves the bench, even the ones that look clean. What's your go-to check before you trust a pulled drive in a client build?

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A retired tech in Reno told me he stopped trusting CrystalDiskInfo on used drives and I blew it off | Computer Technicians - Discusd