The "Broken" Hard Drive

So our favourite amateur computer technician is "on the scrounge" looking for computer parts. It was a standing joke within our department; that whenever we tried to dispose of old scrap computer parts. Old, broken parts that will probably never work again and are about to be scrapped. This guy would turn up looking for handouts. Sometimes we had to almost "fend him off with a big stick" to prevent him from taking new equipment by mistake. Even worse once our scrape had been taken away, all of the stuff he couldn't use or fix miraculously turned up again.

We show him the pile and let him help himself.

On this particular day myself and a colleague had been working on a broken PC. We had discovered the hard drive was faulty and had replaced it. When the guy walked in to ask about the parts my colleague had a idea to have a little fun.

While the guy was picking out battered chassis' and blown graphics cards, we opened up the faulty hard drive and removed all of the internal disks. We put the casing back together, screwed it up and placed it on the end of the desk, labelled "FAULTY!"

The guy, pleased with his "booty" was just coming towards us his arms full of old computer parts. As we knew he would, he spotted the hard drive immediately.

"Oh is that going to be thrown away?" He asked hopefully.

"Yes" I explain. "It's not spinning up. We have just had to swap it out."

"Oh I am sure I can get it going" he says. "Can I have it?"

"Sure" my colleague said. "Why not? But I don't think it will work."

"Oh I'll fix it" the man says, balancing the hard drive on top of his pile and walking away, leaving us chuckling.

About three months later the same guy came in to see us about another problem and in passing he turned to me and said "You know that hard drive you gave me? I can't get it to work. I have had two of my friends look at it as well and they can't either. Dunno what's wrong with it."

"We did tell you that it was broken." I reminded him, trying not to grin and hearing my colleague's stiffled laughter behind me.

"Oh I'll get it going eventually" he announces confidently and strolls off.

We were not so sure...