OldButGold

OldButGold is a Linux terminal (TUI) toolkit for reviving and certifying used HDDs/SSDs/NVMe drives. It runs a full hardware-validation pipeline — SMART health check, destructive surface scan (badblocks), GPT partitioning, filesystem formatting, and a graded classification (Gold / Silver / Bronze / Failed) with a generated markdown report.

Quick start

Make the file executable and double-click it, or run it with sudo if root privileges are required:

chmod +x OldButGold
sudo ./OldButGold

Try the full flow without touching any real drive (uses an image file):

pkexec ./OldButGold --test --mock

Or from source:

pkexec python -m obg --test --mock   # safe trial on a mock image
pkexec python -m obg                 # full validation

Test mode vs mock

• --test limits the badblocks scan to ~1% of the drive, but it is still destructive (it writes test patterns). Use it only on drives you don't care about.
• --mock creates a virtual disk image file (test_disk_1gb.img) — the only risk-free (maybe?) way to try the application.

What it does

1. Drive Identification — enumerate disks, read SMART and geometry.
2. Initial Health Check — SMART short self-test + baseline capture.
3. Surface Validation — destructive badblocks surface scan, resumable if interrupted.
4. Final Health Check — re-read SMART and compute deltas.
5. Prepare / Partition / Format — GPT + chosen filesystem.
6. Report — graded classification with a markdown report.

Requirements

• Linux, Python 3.11+
• root privileges (SMART + badblocks require raw device access, escalated via pkexec)
• Bundled tools/ (smartctl, badblocks, lsblk, blockdev, sgdisk, partprobe, mkfs.*) and lib/ — no host dependencies needed when run from the bundle.

Technologies

• Python 3.11+
• Textual — modern TUI framework (mouse + keyboard navigation)
• Rich — ANSI colors and terminal rendering
• PyInstaller — self-contained single-binary packaging
• smartctl / badblocks / lsblk / blockdev / sgdisk / partprobe / mkfs.* — underlying hardware-validation toolchain

Disclaimer

This tool was created by dmpmuniz for personal use. It is provided without any warranty of any kind, express or implied. Use it at your own risk: any damage to drives, data, or hardware is the sole responsibility of the user. Only run it on drives whose data you do not need — validation is destructive.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.