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One thing you could do, and this is just a suggestion - contact the seller again and reiterate that the goods are faulty and you want a refund. Then state that if this is not forthcoming you will be contacting Paypal and Ebay for them to investigate further. Also make a point of including the fact that they have not wiped their information from the system - they might then be worried about what is left on there and ask for it back! Refund made - problem solved? 
Carol
Well this is what I would do:
1) Jot down the details of the persons information.
2) Completely wipe the disk, like someone has suggested above.
3) Contact the police ... if anybody has questions, plead ignorance and
say you really only thought you would contact the person afterwards to tell them how foolish they were; and you have now realized there may be a problem.
If it is stolen, then you'll probably have to return it; you may be out of pocket.
Quote: if anybody has questions, plead ignorance and
say you really only thought you would contact the person afterwards to tell them how foolish they were; and you have now realized there may be a problem.
Would you believe someone who told you that . . . ?
Quote: And this kind of thing is one of the things that they are paid to deal with.
It doesn't mean they should, people are quite capable of returning lost property without bothering the police. Needs common sense
Quote: The police have enough to deal with, they're already trying to get out of the Lost Property business!
No they are not. Whilst it is a draw on manpower, it is often the case that Lost Property reports relate to known crimes. The websites that offer a lost property service are merely those that have a tie in with the NMPR.
However, that aside, it is the best policy that if you think you have been party to, witnessed or been the victim of a crime to contact (via their non emergency number) the police and make a report.
They would rather it was nothing than have something be ignored.
Quote: people are quite capable of returning lost property without bothering the police. Needs common sense
This isn't lost property though.
It wasn't found on a bus. It was sold inadvertantly and no-one, certainly no-one on here actually knows exactly what it is.
The Police might simply say "format it." as you're insisting he should do or they might just be sufficiently interested to record the fact that it's been brought to their attention.
It will only take a phone call to find out.
And the OP could (although I doubt it) be washing his hands of a potential problem.
That's common sense.
Jesus for all we know this could be a 3GB IBM Drivestar from the classic medieval period and the data on it is 23981320983091823098120938019 years old.
Quote: Sam, you've missed off a nought!
It's a hard drive, there will only be 1's and 0's!
A quick follow up ...
I contacted the owner of the CV (who I suppose owns the copyright of their CV as well as their photos), and they had thought the drive was un-recoverable, and was "distraught" when they thought that they'd lost their data - a 'computer expert' who was a friend of the family seemed to be unable to recover much from it.
The drive will be returned to the seller who is part of the same household (and has agreed to a full refund), I've fixed the partition table (which is all that seemed to be wrong), so the owner should be able to get the pics/docs back by just putting it in an external USB/SATA caddy ...
(The only odd thing was that the start of the partition wasn't at the start of a disk cylinder, but I don't know if either the 'expert' or some Windows attempt at auto-repair could have changed the disk geometry settings)
Bernard
Quote: A quick follow up ...
I contacted the owner of the CV (who I suppose owns the copyright of their CV as well as their photos), and they had thought the drive was un-recoverable, and was "distraught" when they thought that they'd lost their data - a 'computer expert' who was a friend of the family seemed to be unable to recover much from it.
The drive will be returned to the seller who is part of the same household (and has agreed to a full refund), I've fixed the partition table (which is all that seemed to be wrong), so the owner should be able to get the pics/docs back by just putting it in an external USB/SATA caddy ...
(The only odd thing was that the start of the partition wasn't at the start of a disk cylinder, but I don't know if either the 'expert' or some Windows attempt at auto-repair could have changed the disk geometry settings)
Bernard
Lol..so the owner punted a hard drive on Ebay that they knew/thought was knackered without mentioning it was faulty. You find that you can recover the data. They return your tenner or whatever. Looks like they found a very cheap/free data recovery service. Make sure they refund all the postage too.
If it has Bad Sectors it's NON repairable anyway..Any drive with Bad Sectors that can not be repaired with HDD Regenerator is only fit for the Bin. UNLESS it is still under waranty.
Some got 3 years some 5 year waranties on them and will be taken back by the manufacturer and a NEW one sent to you. Any Data on them should be taken off asp.
Glad you got your cash back. I always buy NEW HDD, buying old second hand is asking for trouble.
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