Did anyone try to open a hard disk?

<yaro137.RemoveThis@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1187950946.538426.10290@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
> laptop hard disks.

Immediately introducing dust and moisture from the air and rendering the
drive useless.

> One was surely working but in case of the second
> one I'm not so sure.

Well neither of them will now if you took them apart!

> Anyway, after dismantling the controller cards
> and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
> being very careful all the time.

Well that's definitely screwed them then!

> Then, once I connected the controller
> cards back I was trying to connect the disks to my laptop via USB
> connector.

Waste of time - you already broke them!

> The green diode on the connector indicated that a device is
> connected

No - it just indicates the presence of the circuit board - that should not
have been damaged by the experience!

> but the electric motor of the hard disk wasn't moving at
> all. I did the same with the second disk and in this case the motor,
> for a while was making small jumpy movements and than stopped. When I
> tried to help it a bit it started again, changing the direction of
> the movement this time. Eventually, within 2 or 3 seconds it stopped.
> Can anyone tell me why the motor refused to work?

What does it matter - you will never be able to get the platters to line up
with the heads again and if you do, you won't be able to read anything
because you opened the case and let the world in!
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

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<yaro137 RemoveThis @googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1187965247.085540.313710@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 24, 2:45 pm, "GT" <ContactGT_remo... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Joel" <J... RemoveThis @NoSpam.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:8mmtc311r4uof88595act8vu5lktpit0ce@4ax.com...
>>
>> "GT" <ContactGT_remo... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > <yaro... RemoveThis @googlemail.com> wrote in message
>> >news:1187950946.538426.10290@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>> > > Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2
>> > > old
>> > > laptop hard disks.
>>
>> > Immediately introducing dust and moisture from the air and
>> > rendering the
>> > drive useless.
>>
>> I think you are thinking too hightly of how hard drive works. In
>> early
>> 70's I was working for manufacture that made hard drive, and we
>> always had
>> around dozen hard drives running naked 24/7 with no cases. Of
>> course they
>> were running in clean-room (101?), and we all wore white suite with
>> hood to
>> cover hair and mouth, or the only thing not cover were the eyes.
>
>
> I think so too. I would be very surprised to find out that one can
> render a hard
> drive useless by just opening the case. Even though I could let some
> dust in
> it would only potentially affect the area where it thought the plate
> and only if
> the particular dust particle carried enough charge to demagnetize
> the
> area it
> fell onto. Still however the drive itself should be working fine. Of
> course with time
> and I don't believe we're talking minutes or even hours here the
> information stored
> on the plate would get unreadable, but it should not affect the
> motor
> or any other
> parts that easily. They don't really look so fragile if you look at
> them. Maybe with
> the exception of the tip of the r/w head.
>


"after dismantling the controller cards
and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
being very careful all the time."

So what did that mean? You already said that you dismantled the
casing to get inside. So are the "plates" really the platters? If
you removed them then the low-level formatting marks will never line
up again (because you don't have the equipment). I can just see you
dragging the platters across the heads. So what good is the drive if
you removed the platters? Why remove them if you then put them back
in? You think you could really torque the mountings for the platters
to avoid uneven stress across the platters to avoid warp?

So what anti-static precautions did you take while cannibalizing your
hard drive? Just because the logic for the bus is still working well
enough to give you a green LED lighted up doesn't mean the rest of the
circuitry survived your touch. Sometimes one of the voltage
regulators chips blows if the drive doesn't spin up (which is what
happened to you) which means that PCB won't ever work again (since you
can't get the part and couldn't do the surface soldering, anyway).

If you're so enamored with the very boring mechanical operation of a
hard drive then buy one with a window. I remember seeing one, at a
price premium, that replaced a case cover with a window (might've been
a Seagate drive but not sure since I have no need to become brain
numbed watching platters spin and an actuator arm flick back and
forth).
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

On Aug 24, 11:22 am, "yaro...@googlemail.com" <yaro....RemoveThis@googlemail.com>
wrote:
> Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
> laptop hard disks. One was surely working but in case of the second
> one I'm not so sure. Anyway, after dismantling the controller cards
> and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
> being very careful all the time. Then, once I connected the controller
> cards back I was trying to connect the disks to my laptop via USB
> connector. The green diode on the connector indicated that a device is
> connected but the electric motor of the hard disk wasn't moving at
> all. I did the same with the second disk and in this case the motor,
> for a while was making small jumpy movements and than stopped. When I
> tried to help it a bit it started again, changing the direction of
> the movement this time. Eventually, within 2 or 3 seconds it stopped.
> Can anyone tell me why the motor refused to work?
> yaro

Have a look here, yaro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Disk
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

"Joel" <Joel.TakeThisOut@NoSpam.com> wrote in message
news:8mmtc311r4uof88595act8vu5lktpit0ce@4ax.com...
"GT" <ContactGT_remove_.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:

> <yaro137.TakeThisOut@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:1187950946.538426.10290@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> > Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
> > laptop hard disks.
>
> Immediately introducing dust and moisture from the air and rendering the
> drive useless.

I think you are thinking too hightly of how hard drive works. In early
70's I was working for manufacture that made hard drive, and we always had
around dozen hard drives running naked 24/7 with no cases. Of course they
were running in clean-room (101?), and we all wore white suite with hood to
cover hair and mouth, or the only thing not cover were the eyes.

Same conditions would be required now and I don't think the OP has them!
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

Ok, so I should probably start with explaining why I opened them at
all.
Surely not to just break them apart and then put together expecting
they
will work as nothing never happened. As to anti-static precautions
that
Vanguard mentioned I always use the wrist-strap when getting close
to electronics. Back to the reason, as the drives were of no use for
me
anyway I was just hoping to be able to dismantle them and see how the
platter spins and the head tries to find the MBR. Simple curiosity. I
removed
the platter when it turned up that it isn't spinning at all to look
for any indications
of the reason for that. Obviously I'd never do something like that if
I needed
these disks. It was quite interesting though to find out, thanks to
Vanguard that
there are some low-level formatting marks that need to be lined up.
However, I still
don't know why the motor (platter removed) wasn't moving at all in
case of one
of the drives and in case of the other was making small jumpy
movements.
And BTW don't you guys and I'm talking to thous of you who never seen
an open
hard drive were ever thinking of actually getting inside one? For some
people
the theory not always is enough. If it was so, the word "impossible"
would really
mean impossible instead of "quite difficult"
yaro
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

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 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

<yaro137 RemoveThis @googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1187965247.085540.313710@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 24, 2:45 pm, "GT" <ContactGT_remo... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Joel" <J... RemoveThis @NoSpam.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:8mmtc311r4uof88595act8vu5lktpit0ce@4ax.com...
>>
>> "GT" <ContactGT_remo... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > <yaro... RemoveThis @googlemail.com> wrote in message
>> >news:1187950946.538426.10290@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>> > > Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
>> > > laptop hard disks.
>>
>> > Immediately introducing dust and moisture from the air and rendering
>> > the
>> > drive useless.
>>
>> I think you are thinking too hightly of how hard drive works. In early
>> 70's I was working for manufacture that made hard drive, and we always
>> had
>> around dozen hard drives running naked 24/7 with no cases. Of course
>> they
>> were running in clean-room (101?), and we all wore white suite with hood
>> to
>> cover hair and mouth, or the only thing not cover were the eyes.
>
>
> I think so too. I would be very surprised to find out that one can
> render a hard
> drive useless by just opening the case.

That's why they are sealed - to stop you opening the case!

> Even though I could let some
> dust in
> it would only potentially affect the area where it thought the plate
> and only if
> the particular dust particle carried enough charge to demagnetize the
> area it
> fell onto. Still however the drive itself should be working fine. Of
> course with time
> and I don't believe we're talking minutes or even hours here the
> information stored
> on the plate would get unreadable,

Well, how long do you think the moisture and dirt in the air would take to
damage the few microns of iron on the drive surface? A grain of dust is
about the size of a house compared to a small frozen pea that is a 'bit' on
the drive. It doesn't matter how dense and strong the pea is, the house
landing on it is going to cause damage - especially as the drive spins as
fast a car engine at the red line!

> but it should not affect the motor
> or any other
> parts that easily. They don't really look so fragile if you look at
> them. Maybe with
> the exception of the tip of the r/w head.

Can't comment on drive motors, I just know that taking drives apart is not a
good idea - perhaps you didn't get the platter back in exactly the right
place (we're talking microns) on the spindle, making the gap between platter
and head wrong and an automatic safety mechanism prevented the motor
spinning?
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:22:26 -0000, "yaro137@googlemail.com"
<yaro137.DeleteThis@googlemail.com> wrote:

>Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
>laptop hard disks. One was surely working but in case of the second
>one I'm not so sure. Anyway, after dismantling the controller cards
>and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
>being very careful all the time. Then, once I connected the controller
>cards back I was trying to connect the disks to my laptop via USB
>connector. The green diode on the connector indicated that a device is
>connected but the electric motor of the hard disk wasn't moving at
>all. I did the same with the second disk and in this case the motor,
>for a while was making small jumpy movements and than stopped. When I
>tried to help it a bit it started again, changing the direction of
>the movement this time. Eventually, within 2 or 3 seconds it stopped.
>Can anyone tell me why the motor refused to work?
>yaro


I suspect that after removing the controller card and
reinstalling, you no longer had an electrical connection to
the motor.
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

"Vanguard" <vanguard.TakeThisOut@mail.invalid> wrote in message
news:LamdnUtsD8nBaFPbnZ2dnUVZ_tWtnZ2d@comcast.com...
> <yaro137.TakeThisOut@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:1187965247.085540.313710@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>> On Aug 24, 2:45 pm, "GT" <ContactGT_remo....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> "Joel" <J....TakeThisOut@NoSpam.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>> news:8mmtc311r4uof88595act8vu5lktpit0ce@4ax.com...
>>>
>>> "GT" <ContactGT_remo....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> > <yaro....TakeThisOut@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>>> >news:1187950946.538426.10290@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>> > > Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
>>> > > laptop hard disks.
>>>
>>> > Immediately introducing dust and moisture from the air and rendering
>>> > the
>>> > drive useless.
>>>
>>> I think you are thinking too hightly of how hard drive works. In early
>>> 70's I was working for manufacture that made hard drive, and we always
>>> had
>>> around dozen hard drives running naked 24/7 with no cases. Of course
>>> they
>>> were running in clean-room (101?), and we all wore white suite with hood
>>> to
>>> cover hair and mouth, or the only thing not cover were the eyes.
>>
>>
>> I think so too. I would be very surprised to find out that one can
>> render a hard
>> drive useless by just opening the case. Even though I could let some
>> dust in
>> it would only potentially affect the area where it thought the plate
>> and only if
>> the particular dust particle carried enough charge to demagnetize the
>> area it
>> fell onto. Still however the drive itself should be working fine. Of
>> course with time
>> and I don't believe we're talking minutes or even hours here the
>> information stored
>> on the plate would get unreadable, but it should not affect the motor
>> or any other
>> parts that easily. They don't really look so fragile if you look at
>> them. Maybe with
>> the exception of the tip of the r/w head.
>>
>
>
> "after dismantling the controller cards
> and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
> being very careful all the time."
>
> So what did that mean? You already said that you dismantled the casing to
> get inside. So are the "plates" really the platters? If you removed them
> then the low-level formatting marks will never line up again (because you
> don't have the equipment). I can just see you dragging the platters
> across the heads. So what good is the drive if you removed the platters?
> Why remove them if you then put them back in? You think you could really
> torque the mountings for the platters to avoid uneven stress across the
> platters to avoid warp?
>
> So what anti-static precautions did you take while cannibalizing your hard
> drive? Just because the logic for the bus is still working well enough to
> give you a green LED lighted up doesn't mean the rest of the circuitry
> survived your touch. Sometimes one of the voltage regulators chips blows
> if the drive doesn't spin up (which is what happened to you) which means
> that PCB won't ever work again (since you can't get the part and couldn't
> do the surface soldering, anyway).
>
> If you're so enamored with the very boring mechanical operation of a hard
> drive then buy one with a window. I remember seeing one, at a price
> premium, that replaced a case cover with a window (might've been a Seagate
> drive but not sure since I have no need to become brain numbed watching
> platters spin and an actuator arm flick back and forth).
>

This was a long discussion to conclude that you must be really crazy (sorry
for that) to hope that a HD will still work fine after opening it, and even
a lot more after dismanteling the platter(s). I would suggest next time to
try to see how a cpu is build inside...
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

On Aug 24, 7:50 pm, kony <s....RemoveThis@spam.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:22:26 -0000, "yaro...@googlemail.com"
>
> <yaro....RemoveThis@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >Well, I did and there is something that bothers me. I opened 2 old
> >laptop hard disks. One was surely working but in case of the second
> >one I'm not so sure. Anyway, after dismantling the controller cards
> >and then getting inside the drives I also managed to remove the plates
> >being very careful all the time. Then, once I connected the controller
> >cards back I was trying to connect the disks to my laptop via USB
> >connector. The green diode on the connector indicated that a device is
> >connected but the electric motor of the hard disk wasn't moving at
> >all. I did the same with the second disk and in this case the motor,
> >for a while was making small jumpy movements and than stopped. When I
> >tried to help it a bit it started again, changing the direction of
> >the movement this time. Eventually, within 2 or 3 seconds it stopped.
> >Can anyone tell me why the motor refused to work?
> >yaro
>
> I suspect that after removing the controller card and
> reinstalling, you no longer had an electrical connection to
> the motor.

Nope, they are not soldered but only connected by copper pins.
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

GT wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
> Well, how long do you think the moisture and dirt in the air would
> take to damage the few microns of iron on the drive surface? A
> grain of dust is about the size of a house compared to a small
> frozen pea that is a 'bit' on the drive. It doesn't matter how
> dense and strong the pea is, the house landing on it is going to
> cause damage - especially as the drive spins as fast a car engine
> at the red line!

The automobile engine isn't damaged by RPM, but by wear caused by
the linear piston speed, which in turn depends on bore and stroke
(and rpm). The magic number is roughly 2500 ft/sec. Cruising
speed is usually well below this, and so continuous operation above
about 3000 rpm is rare. Most automobile engines will last a long
time below about 4500 rpm. For contrast, the HD is operating at
7500 rpm day in and day out.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>



--
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 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk? 

Vanguard wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
> If you're so enamored with the very boring mechanical operation
> of a hard drive then buy one with a window. I remember seeing
> one, at a price premium, that replaced a case cover with a window
> (might've been a Seagate drive but not sure since I have no need
> to become brain numbed watching platters spin and an actuator arm
> flick back and forth).

In the old days (Say '75 or so) the drives had 24 inch disks, stood
in a stand about 3 feet high and had definite visibility (and cores
could be exchanged). In use, the whole rig tended to walk across
the floor. A big one held about 10 megabytes. Access time was in
the order of 75 millisecs.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
 >> Stay informed about: Did anyone try to open a hard disk?