Hard Drive Repair

[Carl WA1KPD]

Interesting advice for repairing a bad HD.



http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=19018

Maybe we can help them

[KA1ZGC]

Cute, but dangerous. Don't try that at home!

The chemicals on the surface of disk platters are deadly. Hitting it with a Dremel gun may be amusing, but it releases all kinds of nasty toxins into the air. You're at risk even touching the surface of a disk platter.

Not to mention lighting it on fire!

Cute thread, though.

--Thom
Keep Away One Zorched Ground Conductor

[W1UJR]

Biggest problem of all was that it was a PC! 

The real answer, and cool video, lies here --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4

[n2bc]

In the good old days (pre-PC and pre-MAC), we would scrub the mighty 250KB 14" platters with alcohol after a 'head crash'.  Then wipe the goo off the heads, and everything was usually good as new.

Once the technology got a couple steps smaller, a head crash usually meant the heads were literally gone and the disk array was just a giant stack of frisbies.

This was in the days of removable disk packs - everything was at the mercy of the operator. Drop a pack and kill the entire machine.  It got worse as the operator would take the damaged pack and try it on another disk drive, then a third, etc., killing all of them in short order.  Then of course he or she would try another pack which would then be consumed by the damaged drive. 

I worked at a bank that had 80 drives and untold # of packs, it was a nightmare when a damaged pack made it back into the vault.   But the OT pay was great!

73, Bill   N2BC

[W1RKW]

I had a buddy of mine recently ask me to install a new hard drive in his PC because his old HD crapped out.  So I did it and got the OS working but then he asked me if there was anyway to retrieve his old data off the old HD.  I said, it's a very slim possibility. 

So I gave it my best.  I figured he had nothing to lose by doing this so I dropped his old HD on the concrete floor a couple of times and lo and behold I was able to transfer data from it to the new drive.  A couple of times I had to smack it cause it quit in mid transfer but was able to get most of the data off it.

[AF9J]

Hmmmm, that's weird. What did it do Bob? Jar the stylus enough to keep it going over the disk?  I will say this, the only way to completely eliminate anybody from data mining on an old hard drive, is to physically destroy it.  Even formatting a hard drive, will not ensure that the old data isn't recoverable.  I remember seeing on a TV news show, a short feature on a small company, that was a hard drive destroying service.  Basically they had a portable aluminum smelter, that they used in "house calls" to businesses that wanted their old hard drives destroyed.  They would melt them down.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[W1RKW]

Ellen,
I'm not sure if the heads were stuck or what. The disc would spin up so I know the heads weren't stuck to the platters.  My guess because I had to smack it a few times tells me it was more of an electro/mechanical issue more so than a mechanical issue.  I don't know for sure though. I just lucked out.

When my friend dropped off the computer and new HD to me I tried to troubleshoot the old HD before installing the new one.  What I found was the old one just sat there and did nothing or every once in a while it would kerchunk (head slap).  Accessing it was impossible. The system wouldn't recognize it at times after rebooting the system.  It would spin up ok but just behaved erratically or do nothing at all.  I figured possibly a crappy solder connection on the PCB but inspection didn't reveal anything so I proceeded to install the new drive and OS. 

Later when when my friend requested to see if I could retrieve any data off the old one I said to myself what the heck, what do I have to lose.  So I dropped it onto the concrete floor in my cellar then plugged it in.  No luck on the first drop but the second drop I was able to access it.  Then it quit in the middle of a massive file transfer so I repeated the process.  I had to give it a few hard belts on the concrete, if I remember right, it was at least 3 smacks before getting everything transferred over to the new drive. 

Destroying HD's with sensitive data is true particularly with EIDE (xATA) HD's.  SCSI on the other hand can be erased more effectively than an EIDE however though not guaranteed.  Defense Security Services recently issued a memo  to defense contractors not to attempt to sanitize SCSI HD's so destruction is the option these days.  We at EB destroy everything to be on the safe side anyway.

[Tom WA3KLR]

What toxic chemicals are on the surface of a hard disk drive platter?

[kf6pqt]

Whacking the drive and having it come back to life is indicative of a failure mode known as "sticktion."
Basically the spindle bearing is sorta seized up... in that the grease in the bearing has dried up, or the bearing is worn to the point that the very low torque spindle motor cannot exert enough breakaway inertia to get it it to start spinning. Usually a bizarre "whee whee whee" noise is symptomatic of such a condition.

Holding the drive in your hand and shaking it around in the plane of the disk platters (as opposed to bashing the snot out of it against concrete) is a much more reliable method of coaxing a bit more, if not a lot more life out of one of these wretched yet fragile, precision, machines when they exhibit this behavior.

I too am curious as to what toxins are present on the platters, as I should be dead by now!

-Jason kf6pqt

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

'Sticktion', eh? Years ago I had an old 64M Seagate SCSI drive that did this very thing in my first PC, a.k.a. 'Frankenputer', built from spare parts. Give that puppy a good *whack* and away it would go! Worked fine for a while, then required another smack. Eventually upgraded to a Western Digital of larger size. Think I gave the scuzzy drive away. Should've kept it as a paperweight.

Hey, it works with old radio gear, so why not? Dropping on the floor, well.......I don't think I'd want to 'fix' it that much. Might fix it permanently!

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

They had removed all of the top-loading units from here before I arrived, Mack. We still have a few of the disks themselves as souvenirs. We had those big blue IBM 3880s about the size of a refrigerator and dryer combined. An entire, LARGE room full. When we went to the EMC Symmetrix in '98 it was reduced to one 6' relay rack-sized box. And was lightning fast in comparison!

Recently picked up one of those tiny 80Gig external drives. Talk about amazing technology....

[W1RKW]

I don't know if this case could be classified as sticktion afterall the platter did spin up in all cases. I still think it was an electrical problem and a  mechanical shock fixed a crappy connection.

Whacking the drive and having it come back to life is indicative of a failure mode known as "sticktion."
Basically the spindle bearing is sorta seized up... in that the grease in the bearing has dried up, or the bearing is worn to the point that the very low torque spindle motor cannot exert enough breakaway inertia to get it it to start spinning. Usually a bizarre "whee whee whee" noise is symptomatic of such a condition.

Holding the drive in your hand and shaking it around in the plane of the disk platters (as opposed to bashing the snot out of it against concrete) is a much more reliable method of coaxing a bit more, if not a lot more life out of one of these wretched yet fragile, precision, machines when they exhibit this behavior.

I too am curious as to what toxins are present on the platters, as I should be dead by now!

-Jason kf6pqt