How to Sell a Broken External Hard Drive

A broken external hard drive is still worth selling — typically £4 to £15 at For Parts, against £15 to £60 in working order.

Can you sell an external hard drive that does not work?

Yes. Repairers, people replacing one component and buyers who want a project all shop deliberately at this end. None of them will accept a fault they discover after paying.

What actually goes wrong with external hard drives

These are the faults that move an external hard drive down the grades, and the first things a buyer will ask about:

Reallocated sectors or warnings in the drive health
Clicking or grinding mechanical drives
Small capacities, worth almost nothing
Missing proprietary cables

Grading it honestly

Fair covers something heavily used, or with a described fault or missing part: around £7 to £27. For Parts covers something not working or incomplete, sold as seen: roughly £4 to £15. Grades are seller-declared and nobody inspects them for you, so grading up does not raise what you get — it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else. All five grades explained.

Working out what you actually have

Establish the fault properly rather than guessing at it:

Run a drive health check and report the status
Note the power-on hours if available
Securely erase the drive before selling

Photographing the fault

Photograph the damage directly and in focus — it is the evidence that the rest of the description is honest:

The drive whole, with its cable
A health-check screen showing SMART status and hours
The label with capacity, model and interface
The connector and power supply, plus any dent or scuff

What to state in the listing

Alongside the fault itself, buyers of broken external hard drives want these confirmed:

Capacity and interface
Whether it is bus powered or needs a mains adapter
SMART health status and power-on hours
That it has been securely erased, and what cables are included

Capacity, interface and type: “Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive, USB 3.0, Portable”. Capacity is the search. Say whether it is a portable bus-powered drive or a desktop unit needing mains power, since that changes its use entirely.

What buyers will ask

Answer these in the listing rather than waiting to be asked:

“Have you wiped it properly?”

Say that you securely erased rather than quick formatted it. Recoverable personal data on a sold drive is a real problem for you, not just for the buyer.

“What is the drive health like?”

Run a SMART check and quote the hours and any reallocated sectors. Buyers of used storage always ask and the honest figure builds trust.

“Does it need a power supply?”

Say which, and include it. A desktop drive without its specific adapter is unusable.

Is it worth repairing first?

Usually not, unless it is cheap and you can evidence it. What lifts the price is condition and completeness, which a repair rarely restores:

Larger capacities and faster interfaces
Low power-on hours with clean health status
SSD-based drives over mechanical
Original cable, often proprietary

If the work would cost more than the gap between £15 and what a sound one fetches, sell it as is broken and let the buyer decide.

When to list it

Steady year round with a lift in January. Larger capacities and USB-C drives sell fastest; small old drives are worth very little.

Getting it to the buyer

Light and easy to post, but pack well — mechanical drives are shock sensitive and a knock in transit can kill one that was working when it left.

WishThrift does not process payments, arrange delivery or hold funds. Confirm the money has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.

Ready to list it? Free to list, no commission, and neither side pays a buyer-protection fee — create a free account, or read the full external hard drive selling guide if yours turns out to be sound.

Frequently asked questions

Is a broken external hard drive worth anything?

Yes — typically £4 to £15 at For Parts against £15 to £60 working. Repairers and people harvesting one component buy deliberately at this end. Reallocated sectors or warnings in the drive health

Should I repair it before selling?

Usually not, unless the repair is cheap and you can evidence it. The things that genuinely lift the price are larger capacities and faster interfaces and a repair rarely restores those.

What do buyers ask about a faulty external hard drive?

The fault itself, in detail. Say that you securely erased rather than quick formatted it. Recoverable personal data on a sold drive is a real problem for you, not just for the buyer. The listing that answers it before being asked is the one that sells.