Secure erase via IDE to USB adapter - OT

[Tim]

On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 17:17 +0100, mike cloaked wrote:
> if I plug the old (not-very-healthy!) disk in to a sata-to-usb
> external adapter, and then hotplug the usb cable into the new machine
> on a usb port, I am guessing that I will not be able to pass hdparm
> commands to the old disk connected in this way

It depends on the chips in the adapters (see hdparm docs).  Mine don't
support it, and the only one of them that I can warn you about is the
Seagate desktop expansion drive, the others have no branding.