Exposed: fake ‘new’ hard drives sold on Amazon were hiding recycled parts from over a decade ago
- Hard drives sold as new interns contained from decades of digital and Western Seagate units previously used
- Intelligent data has been handled to hide the previous use, masking serious mechanical error problems and reading
- Attango’s analysis has revealed remaining user data, proving that closing only affects the start of the storage sectors
A recent case involving unions’ external hard drives has raised serious questions about the integrity of certain products sold on the Amazon market.
An investigation by the data recovery company, Attango, has discovered “new” hard disks contained 2.5 inches of big brands like Seagate and Western Digital made more than a decade ago.
These results contradict the labeling of products, which lists a manufacturing date from spring 2025.
Used drives posing as
The discs were sold under the HD2510 identifier during the promotional period of the Amazon technological week, and the buyers were supposed to be new portable hard drives adapted to regular backup and storage.
The dismantling of Attango of the discs revealed not only their age, but also signs of previous use, the evidence extending beyond the material identifiers.
The company said that some of the hard drives still contained user data fragments, with only the start of data fields at zero.
This practice, commonly used to simulate the complete erasure of data, has failed to eliminate all traces of prior use.
An XML file recovered even contained a time time for May 2024, pointing to a very recent activity incompatible with a supposedly unused device.
Certain traces of data were linked to television recording systems, suggesting that discs were once in operational environments.
Attongo has also noted inconsistencies in intelligent data (self-surveillance, analysis and report technology), which is used by operating systems to assess the health of the hard drive.
Although the operating hours displayed have suggested zero use, other key measures, such as the reading error rate, told another story.
This type of manipulation has been seen previously in cases of fraud involving reused hard drives, in particular those sold by the gray market.
The presence of many reading errors and mechanical anomalies was conflicting with smart status, indicating a new training.
The fact that this problem is emerged from a well-known retail platform, rather than a niche market or an obscure online store, is particularly worrying.
Attango CEO Markus Häfele expressed his alarm in the face of conclusions, saying that the situation was not only misleading for consumers, but also potentially dangerous from the data protection point of view.
“It is unfortunately well known that the equipment used is sometimes declared new on platforms such as eBay or in direct imports to Asian retailers – but the fact that this happens systematically within the framework of a largely announced Amazon campaign is really scandalous,” said Häfele.
Although the incident has aroused a renewal of concerns about the reliability of NAS hard drives and external storage devices offered through online third -party sellers, Amazon has not yet responded to allegations.
Via computerbase
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