Anybody have opened a hard drive?

[JonathanB]

Great pics omega31. Thanks. If I open it up and try to manually rotate the bearings both in spindle and the platter just to check for the spin, will it damage anything? For now, I don't have the replacement logic board so might as wel do for the bearings and see what will happen. And why can't I open it up even if I remove all the tiny screws on top (the top side I'm referring to is with the labels)?

[omega31]

Well, if you still want a useable hard drive, I'd advise against opening the platter chamber up. Even one speck of dust can ruin the drive. If you still want to proceed, there may be one more screw behind the label. I had to cut around the label to get to this final screw on the drive I opened up.

This drive was dead because I accidentally ripped the sealant tape around the drive keeping it airtight. I got a little impatient while trying to jam this drive in a comp made from spare parts. No big loss, as I said this is only 850mb, and it had bad sectors.

[davewuk]

I must be really lucky as I opened a 6Gb notebook drive a tad over a year ago, repaired a stuck head and it's still going. I created my own 'clean room' environment best as I could using large polythene bag, scrubbed tools and wore rubber surgical gloves. But the previous posts are all correct, specks of dust including hair, skin, spit etc and the drive will be destined for the graveyard. Mine may be stalling for time and eventually head that way, but so far....

[causticVapor]

The best way to create a household clean room is to close all wndows in a bathroom, set the showerhead to maximum heat, exit the bathroom, close the door, and let it run for about 10mins, or until the bathroom is fully steamed up. Then enter, cut the flow off to the shower head, exit again, close the door, and wait about 15mins for the steam to subside. The condensed water vapor will have brought the majority of the dust floating around in the air with it to the floor. After this, one can very quickly open the HDD and make repairs/window mods to it.

Still not even 1/4 as clean as a clean room but it will do the job.

[causticVapor]

One thing you could do with opened HDDs (after loosening the screws on the axle): Frisbee!

Power it up, and aim it somewhere -- be sure to wear all-body armor! Definitely a challenge for all those frisbee "pros" who think they're so good.

Hmmm.... 5400/7200RPM frisbees... hmm....






j/k.

[G Ray88]

They do make neat mirrors!

[omega31]

They do make neat mirrors!

They sure do. Just look at my hard drive platters picture. My flash got reflected onto the box behind it, leaving a cool effect. I had to angle the flash so it wouldn't bounce back to my lens.
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/attachme...&postid=793910

[JonathanB]

I'll check how I can make my own CLEAN ROOM. Thanks to 'ol. merry xmas!!!

[davewuk]

Just remember, act quickly, try to keep the internals exposed for the shortest possible time, cover if you need to leave the job and keep fingers well clear of those gold shiny discs - oh and tools!!

Another use, expensive (relatively speaking) placemat alternative to those freebie AOL CDRs

[causticVapor]

Another good thing to do would be to wash yourself beforehand so that there is a lower chance of skin particles, etc getting onto the platters.

[ConfusedAlien]

how about them powerful magnets eh?
sort of look like twa wings they give you inside the plane lol


i ripped my shirt trying to separate them...ouch that hurt

[bubbleflap]

hah if you ever want a hard drive to have any possible chance of working again, don't open it up and expose the platters

[extreme_gamer]

hard drives r kinda like film in one of those rolls, eh? hmm my speaker just fell, i think there's a ghost in this room. anyways... ya, um... how can you make your own "clean room"

[JonathanB]

hah if you ever want a hard drive to have any possible chance of working again, don't open it up and expose the platters

So... what would I do first? Inspect the logic board? If so burned, do I wait for a similar drive to get its logic board? If not burned, what's should be next? How do I make a clean room? The suggested bathroom he he... WHILE doing my morning discharge there he he... (just a joke).

[bubbleflap]

lol nice idea, but wouldn't work. Usually for your intermediate computer user once a hard drive stops working its more hasstle that its worth trying to fix it. Once a hard drive stops working, see if you still have waranty on it, if you don't then just accept that its shagged and get a new one. Myself never having fixed a hard drive, i'm not 100% on all of the methods of fixing them. I would assume that the only thing that you can do is get an identicle logic board and swap it out with the existing one on the hard drive, but getting another logic board would mean getting another hard drive, correct? Rendering the fixing pointless. Not too sure though... Whatever happens, good luck with it

-->Bubbleflap

P.S its impossible to make a clean room without shi*te loads of specialist equipment, costing you more than the most expensive hard drive out there