What To Do With An Old Hdd.. [Archive]

threeme2189

12-14-04, 06:27 AM

one day i was thinking what i could make a superfast fan out of and a question popped into my head."whats the fastest spinning thing in my computer?(except that gazillion RPM Delta)
and it came to me THE HARDDRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! :attn: :attn:
now all i have to do is get my hands on an old (and still spinning) drive, open it up, drink somthing, take all the unneeded guts out (all the plates except the top one and the thing that writes/reads the plates) and cut the top plate into a fan shape!!!

will this work? if anyone tries tell me and if i get a harddrive i will tell you what happens!!!

cetoole

12-14-04, 07:13 AM

You are a little far away, but I have some extra 4 gig drives laying around. The platters will break if cut and spun up, but theoretically, you could replace them with the blades off a delta or something, epoxied on. Imagine the possibilities with a 15k scsi drive. Interesting first post, welcome, and always try those crazy ideas, but be sure to take video recordings if you ever do it and post them here.

threeme2189

12-14-04, 07:59 AM

ok will do bro...maybe il have a 5.4K rpm 120 mm fan!!!! lol :burn:

il take pics if i do it and it works!!! (and if it doesnt)

Captain Slug

12-14-04, 08:10 AM

And imagine the injuries if it fails or you get too close. I thought 3,000 RPM fans hurt (especially the sharp thermaltake ones), but ouch.

magick_man

12-14-04, 08:38 AM

im not sure if the motors in most hdd's will have the powah nessecary to spin a fan at the disk's rated speed.
but who knows it might get up to speed, and just take a minute to do it.
i guess the only way to find out is to try it...

~Magick_Man~

threeme2189

12-14-04, 08:50 AM

pshshshshshs my 1st post and everyones lookin at it!!!!!!

aronmartin

12-14-04, 08:54 AM

be careful, if the fan blade is not rated for the rpm of the drive it may explode.

jcw122

12-14-04, 09:04 AM

i had this exact idea 2 months back or so...

JFettig

12-14-04, 09:07 AM

If you want a really fast fan, just take the fan and little shaft part(attached to the blades, keep it this way) and stick it into your dremel, you may hit 20000rpm but you may also be injured pretty severely if your not careful, they do tend to blow up at that speed. I did it a while ago, its pretty cool. You can also put them in loosely, point it strait up(outside) and crank it up and watch it shoot up really high:)
Theres a thread around here somewhere about it.(Im sure that kind of load wont hit 30000rpm that most dremels are rated at because thats quite the load. You get about 500-600cfm comming off an 80mm fan, its pretty sweet.

Jon

magick_man

12-14-04, 09:20 AM

You get about 500-600cfm comming off an 80mm fan, its pretty sweet
hehehe who needs tornadoes with fans like this.
that would destroy all. including you if you got in it's way.
i think i might try thir with one of my 120mm delta's i have lying around.
throw it on the dremel and try to dodge fast flying shards of plastic.

~Magick_Man~

Zerileous

12-14-04, 11:17 AM

also, when messing with high RPM fan stuff, be sure to post any injuries BEFORE going to the hospital.

Seriosly though, be careful.

threeme2189

12-14-04, 11:53 AM

ya i saw that awsome dremel forum somwhere!!! awsome s-hit!!!!

if i ever get a harddrive i think il mod it into a fan plug it into an old PSU with
a loooooooooooong extension cable and "amp it up" :attn: :burn: (my little bro watches action man)
would a hdd platter make a good grinding disk?
GZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ coohoohool!!!!!! :burn: :burn: :burn:

elec999

12-14-04, 11:56 AM

There are some 7000rpm fans out there, there even was a 15k once.
I cant remember where I saw them.
Thanks

RoadWarrior

12-14-04, 11:59 AM

Yeah one of the infamous deltas was 7000 RPM wasn't it, 60mm wide by 38mm deep or something like that.

cetoole

12-14-04, 12:01 PM

The infamous 60mm Delta Screamer was up there, 8000 RPM I think, and there is a 40mmx28mm Delta (http://sidewindercomputers.com/delfub.html) that is 9500 RPM. I think the platters would explode if used for grinding, post pictures before going to the hospital, or just set up a webcam.

evowatercooling

12-14-04, 12:41 PM

I think the one problem you will run into is that a hard drive motor is not meant to spin constantly. But i say try it and see what happens.

L337 M33P

12-14-04, 01:10 PM

If all else fails do this (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=302781)

:D

hibner

12-14-04, 01:24 PM

Has anyone tried it yet, 'cause if not I got an old 5.4GB 5400 RPM just dyin to get ****ed up. I just might do it tonight.

I'll keep you posted

cetoole

12-14-04, 02:38 PM

We could have fun with some LN2.

Mr. Perfect

12-14-04, 06:55 PM

Drive platters are made out of glass, you're not going to go grinding anything with one.

threeme2189

12-15-04, 09:03 AM

hibner

12-15-04, 06:12 PM

I'm so pissed off. I can home today with some pent up frustration, and I was dying to take it out on this old 15gb deskstar i have. I was all prepared to come home, crack open this hard drive and be the first to attempt to make a fan out of it, or loose a finger, or something. And, I don't have a small enough allen wrench........ ARRRRGHHHHH :temper: oh well, looks like I am going to the ol' hardware store before i get home tommorrow.

SavageBasher

12-15-04, 06:31 PM

dremel and a cutting wheel... make a slot in the screws for a flat screwdriver....

Mark620

12-15-04, 07:06 PM

Drive platters are made out of glass, you're not going to go grinding anything with one.

I have yet to find a glass Platter. They are made out of aluminum with a coating on them. I know this because I have ground the coating off a few platters. These platters are out of just about everything. IDE & SCSI, 300Meg to 60GB, one is out of a 15K SCSI.

techun

12-15-04, 07:33 PM

they definatly look like cds, lol

Mr. Perfect

12-15-04, 07:46 PM

Huh. I could have sworn I read they where glass. :-/

BTW, a small cold chisel is great for knocking the heads off the screws. I didn't have the right sized alan wrench for a junk Deskstar, so I just knocked the heads of the screws off. :D Never thought to sand the platters to see what they where made of though. ;)

Aphex_Tom_9

12-15-04, 07:51 PM

yea, they're metal.

threeme2189

12-15-04, 11:54 PM

well the older ones were glass but now they are being made outof metal!!!

i found a glass platter once and itlooks exactly like a metal one but i broke it into itty bitty peices :attn:

subtotal

12-16-04, 12:53 AM

they definatly look like cds, lol

i know a guy who uses one as a mirror in his car...

Droban

12-16-04, 02:21 AM

I can just see bodies being sucked in by the fan and gettin stuck against the case.

That or the tower just lifting shooting through a wall.

Celeron_Phreak

12-16-04, 03:01 AM

Ooh, pretty. I've got about 30+ of the small 3.5" drive platters and about 20+ of the big ones. I used to collect old computers and computer parts. When I started selling stuff I picked out the bad stuff and had a good 15+ hard drives that were dead, mostly SCSI and ESDI (who else remembers ESDI drives here? :)). I use one of the mirror (seriously, a chrome mirror platter) as a mirror at my desk :)

threeme2189

12-17-04, 02:02 AM

well is anyone gonna try it? im dying to but i cant seem to get my ands on an old drive
ARRRRRRRRRG!

threeme2189

12-18-04, 01:36 AM

bumpy bump?

i guess no ones interested in old drives anymore....

check this out: :burn: :burn: :burn: :burn: :burn: I <---drag race!

threeme2189

12-19-04, 01:23 PM

hmmmmm another bump? is anyone gonna look at this ever again?
can anyone email/fax me a hdd so i can try this out? LOL

elec999

12-20-04, 02:58 AM

Does it really make any difference what speed it spins at. The Panaflos seems to be spinning at a much slower speed, but giving much better cfms.
Thanks

gavin53

12-20-04, 11:38 AM

My son and I have been trying to make a hover craft toy out of old 'puter parts. HDDs have to be really OLD to have enough power to keep spinning with all the air resistance you are going to give them. I like the fan blade on a Dremel trick we are going to have to try it.
"Stand back and goggles UP!"

phantomditto

12-20-04, 01:32 PM

Ouch... I removed the fanblades from a computer fan yesterday to try the dremel trick, and when the fan popped out it took a chunk of my hand with it... :(

~pd

Quattro

12-20-04, 04:35 PM

Ouch...

I want to find some old drives now...

gavin53

12-20-04, 07:34 PM

I think I said to STAND BACK! This kind of foolishness needs to be set-up and run with a LONG extension cord. BTW I've taken bigger chunks out of my hands than that! We don't need injury pictures unless you think you might qualify for a Darwin Award! ;-)

I've got some old 200Meg drives, worth less than any shipping charges I'm sure.
G

ZachM

12-20-04, 09:03 PM

I was all prepared to come home, crack open this hard drive and be the first to attempt to make a fan out of it, or loose a finger, or something. And, I don't have a small enough allen wrench........ ARRRRGHHHHH :temper: oh well, looks like I am going to the ol' hardware store before i get home tommorrow.

I got a hard drive cover off by taking a big flathead screwdriver, jamming it between the cover and the drive, and taking a hammer to the end of it. The heads of the screws would sheer enabling the cover to just pull off. I had to use pliers to turn the center one though. That one wouldn't pry off.

JetEngineMech

12-20-04, 09:11 PM

I do believe that you will need a fan with a balde pitch made for that RPM rating. If the tip speed of the blade exceeds the speed of sound, it won't move the air. Not to mention the vibration. Good luck, the idea sounds awesome! Just wear some safety glasses!

sixsixone

12-20-04, 09:29 PM

This thread makes me want to shoot myself.

threeme2189

12-21-04, 09:08 AM

nice chunk...do you still have it?
anyone know where i can find the darwin award stories? THEY R AWSOME!!!
yo Zach are you gonna try my idea? if so post pics and results!
if you get hurt post supercool bloody images! lol kidding be careful!

phantomditto

12-21-04, 11:52 AM

I think you guys misunderstand... that was just from the fan popping out, not when I had it on the dremel. I was levering it out with a screwdriver and it pops out... I look down and 'oh, part of my hand is gone'.

Wasn't able to find the chunk though... :D

~pd

gavin53

12-21-04, 02:17 PM

I got a hard drive cover off by taking a big flathead screwdriver, jamming it between the cover and the drive, and taking a hammer to the end of it. The heads of the screws would sheer enabling the cover to just pull off. I had to use pliers to turn the center one though. That one wouldn't pry off.

Torx heads for your screwdriver handle aren't that expensive!

threeme2189

12-23-04, 05:26 AM

man this sux...a few days after i totally trashed a drive (with a hammer mostly) cause i didnt have a good screw driver or any power tool that could help me open the sucker i found out a little box with a screw driver and about a gazillion types of heads including the one i needed GRRRRRRRRRRRR
now that i have the right tool i dont have the #$%@&* drive!!!

Celeron_Phreak

12-23-04, 01:29 PM

Well getting angry and cursing over it isn't going to make things any better or change the past, let it go. I know for a fact that you can get old hard drives off of eBay for like $2 a piece. Someone on the Obsolete Computer Helpline might be able to help you even. Here's the link:

http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/cgi-bin/helpline.pl

Just click on the "Swap Shop" link at the top and you'll be at their classifieds section. Just post that you want an old hard drive, doesn't matter how big, and looking to pay for under $5 for it, pay only shipping if nessessary. I know Philo might be able to help you there. Tell them David I. sent you :)

electrorcamd

12-24-04, 08:05 PM

I might do this with an old Seagate. It's 1.2GB and it can't get anything to recognize. I think it still powers up, but its old so it is not going to be 7200RPM, probably not 5400 either. I am not sure if I will be able to do it or not, but I will try to figure something out. Just don't expect major injuries, I am not sure if I will actually do it.

electrorcamd

12-24-04, 08:19 PM

I just checked the drive. It powers up and it is not detected by my BIOS.
Is there anything I need to worry about when I open the drive? I know about the super strong magnet, but is there anything else? I also need to find a good camera, but that *shouldn't* be *too* much of a problem.
Edit: Here are the drive's specs. Is this still fast enough for everybody to want me to do this? I will be using blades off of an old cracked fan, because I don't want to cut apart the platters in the first drive I take apart.
Model No: ST31276A
2 Disks/4 Heads
High Performance Rotary Voice coil actuator with embedded servo
Automatic Actuator latch against inner stop upon power down
64KB cache
RPM: 4500rpm +/- 0.25%
Disk type: sputtered thin film
Head type: thin film
Average seek: 12.5ms
1:1 interleave
MTBF: 300,000 power on hours
MTBR (repair): 10 minutes
This was all taken from the Seagate website.
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/ata/st31276a.html
Any things I need to worry about opening it?

Jyotir Math

12-24-04, 11:29 PM

You can actually make working speakers out of yer ole hardrives. The specs will be comming soon to a thread near you. :attn:

Westline

12-27-04, 04:32 AM

Anyone try a cd-rom drive?

threeme2189

12-27-04, 05:05 AM

ya i saw that and i think its super awsome!!!!!
i have to try that too!!!!!!!!!
anyone else have cool ideas about things you can make with old hdds?

Avro

12-29-04, 12:36 PM

i did the hdd speaker mod it was sweet, i also dropped a hard drive out of a moving vehicle, then someone behind us ran over it and they weren't too happy about that. but when i got the hard drive i didn't open it, just shook it and sounded like there was sand in it. :D

TheFrag

12-29-04, 01:09 PM

well the older ones were glass but now they are being made outof metal!!!

i found a glass platter once and itlooks exactly like a metal one but i broke it into itty bitty peices :attn:

Actually its the other way around.
The concept of glass platters is relatively new (They started using them about 3 years ago, I believe), and I am pretty sure they are around today. I am pretty sure that Maxtor uses them (Either they did or are) and the same could be said for Seagate (I'm positive at least some of the newer barracudas use them). I also think that they are used in laptop hard drives since the platters are thinner, but I am not sure.

Glass platters are "better" than aluminum ones because they can be made thinner, yet they resist the heat better, can stand the centrifigal (no idea how to spell it, lol) force caused by spinning at extremely high speeds, and can be made thinner.

voodoomelon

12-29-04, 01:29 PM

I just opened up an old Fujitsu 6.4gb 5400rpm hard drive:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/voodoomelon/Image020.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/voodoomelon/Image021.jpg

I took out the platters and plugged in the drive. The motor spins, but very slowly, as you can touch it to slow it down. I'd guess it spins at no more than 2000rpm.

I couldn't even be bothered attaching fins, my Tornado spins at 5600rpm. :p

;)

Avro

12-29-04, 03:31 PM

get more voltage into that motor.

Paradoxmaker

12-29-04, 06:49 PM

Well if your nutty enough to try attaching a fan to the HD motor or cutting a fan out of the HD disk you had better make sure that you have the fan balanced and centered on the moter shaft. A 10000 rpm vibration would be a quick end to any expirment.

As an alternitive to using a fan or making a fan how about going a diffrent direction. Use a wooden/nylon/carbon fiber propeller for a model airplane. They hold up to speeds in excess of 10000rpm (I think some motors turn over 15000rpm without a gear reduction) Not to mention you can get the propellers in dia's from 4" to 24" real cheap.

As a side note all the HD platters I have ever seen were of the coated aluminium kind. Back when I did the HD acid stripping tests for the Kill Button Thread (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=157930) I asked if someone could send me a couple of glass platters so I could put them in acid also but I never had any takers.

threeme2189

12-30-04, 01:36 PM

nah dont worry about stuff in the drive...i already busted one open and imho im still as alive and well as i was before i opened it lol.
btw if you put one of the magnets in ur pocket you can hang a pretty big metal tool (eg hammer) onto it from the outside!

good luck with it and keep us (mostly me) posted!!!!!!!

EDIT: grrrr i hate fixin typos but "hang" was "hand" and it looked weird... :-/

subtotal

12-30-04, 02:17 PM

lol, sometimes when my friends come ova igive them a couple of harddrive magnets and ask them to pull them apart

electrorcamd

12-30-04, 02:35 PM

I can't figure out how to take apart the Seagate. I got the circuit board off using a torx 10 screwdriver/drill bit. I am now stuck, as I cannot find any more screws. Here are some pics:
http://programmerkid89.tripod.com/seagate.html

electrorcamd

12-30-04, 02:44 PM

Never mind, it is open. My picture link right now doesn't work, I will upload the pics soon (hopefully). All I had to do to open it was peel off some tape. That is basically all that held the drive together.

threeme2189

12-30-04, 03:46 PM

hmmmm i think my last post disappeared...
i posted here about 1 hour ago and now its gone...

Yamiyanazz

12-31-04, 01:41 AM

Silver

12-31-04, 02:02 AM

Yeah one of the infamous deltas was 7000 RPM wasn't it, 60mm wide by 38mm deep or something like that.

Actually had a warning (as I remember) at one site to the effect that they were not responsible for cut off fingers in the event a guard was not used.

threeme2189

12-31-04, 05:16 AM

those hdd magnets rock...i put one in my pocket hooked a hammer to it and started walking around...coool...
i wonder why the motor spun so slow...maybe it has to get a signal from the compy that tells it to start moving data?
could a hdd live through 18 volts of torture??? *grimace* lets find out...
now all i gotta do is find a drive..

thefrag i didnt know that...

it would be a good idea to try with a cdrom drive too...

avro your sick but genious at the same time...

btw sorry that my posts order doesnt make any sense...i just missed the second page whe i posted them...stupid me

Maximouse

12-31-04, 07:36 AM

Hate to spoil your fun, but you are going to have a very near impossible time driving a fan with a HD platter motor.

The reason is that the platter motors have a very low torque (power) rating.

They are fine getting nice light, flat, smooth platters spinning at their rated speeds, but the minute you attach a high resistance item (fan blade trying to push air)....well the poor thing is going to have a nervous breakdown.

It's about the same as putting a VW engine in a Mack tractor truck and expecting it to drive at highway speeds. ;)

I used to have trouble with older Seagates and WD drives. When the oil dried up slightly the motor didnt have enough power to start the platter spinning because of the extra resistance. If you gave the drive a tap with a screwdriver then the jolt was enough to get it started.

Sorry to pop your bubble.

Al

threeme2189

12-31-04, 01:52 PM

dont worry you didnt spoil or pop any bubbles (lol) there must be a million krayzeee things we psycos can make with drives...anyone for "metal/glass finger hacking frizbee"??

i wonder how much voltage a drive can take untill it would work no more...
or maybe try grinding with a drive platter on a dremel?

anyone got some wickidcool ideas he wants to share with us??

electrorcamd

12-31-04, 02:15 PM

Yeah the pictures in the link aren't up yet. I just made a copy of my Sempron page so that I wouldn't have to type everything. I am stil working on my pics.

xangelofdeathx

01-10-05, 09:27 PM

i could imagine the mess of that hd fan going wrong. It would be pretty neat to see pictures of a fan stuck in someones head. :)

threeme2189

01-11-05, 12:02 AM

one word...coool
ohh and heres another...LEEET
:attn::attn::attn::attn:

RoadWarrior

01-11-05, 07:44 AM

I used to have trouble with older Seagates and WD drives. When the oil dried up slightly the motor didnt have enough power to start the platter spinning because of the extra resistance. If you gave the drive a tap with a screwdriver then the jolt was enough to get it started.

Heh heh, I thought I was the only one crazy enough to flick HDDs with a screwdriver to get them going. A few years ago, I was real short of HDD space, and had this 200Mb Maxtor, that if you ran it once a day, started up fine, but if you left it for a day or two, gummed up. I had that sucker open about 15 times to "bump start" it. :D Amazingly enough I never had a bad sector on it, and ran win 95 on a 486 off it. I also had one with "head stiction" issues, and I had to slam it on the desk to get it going every so often. :D

I'll tell you what harddrives you might look into as a source of power, those big ole seagate 5.25 inch drives, even the half height ones seemed to be considerably over engineered and you couldn't spin one up on the desktop without it twisting to the limits of it's cable tethering. You could feel the torque on those things. If you cut a 3 inch hole over the hub, disabled the heads and glued 8 vanes on the disk, then cut a hole in the end of the drive casing, you'd probably have a good centrifugal blower :D

Another point however about some more modern drives is that they will automatically spin down if they can't self test, and they can't self test if you clobber the heads, so you're SOL for using the onboard controller to drive the motor and would have to bin the controller and build your own stepper motor controller. Though with that approach there are steps you can take to boost the torque. I'd say anything from about 400Mb upward is going to have that "issue" with the controller, though it's a designed in feature rather than something that is a problem normally.

regards,

Road Warrior

BloodbathMK

02-27-05, 04:47 PM

take one of those analog clock kits and use the drive as a clock, make the drive heads into hands

threeme2189

03-02-05, 10:31 AM

cool idea and thanks for the bump :p
i wanna make a speaker out of one too...that would be so cool...

blueswitch

03-04-05, 01:07 PM

dude your partially wrong... :argue:

old drive platters are glass but not even all of them are...

i opened a 5 gig drive and i got metal platters

i have them all dented up in my room !!!!

hibner KEEP US POSTED!!!!!!!!! :burn:

In college I had a job in a medical center where we replaced a bunch of old comps and my boss wantd myself and my co worker to smash the HDD. Out of about 20 4 gigers all of the plates were metal.

blueswitch

03-04-05, 01:10 PM

threeme2189

03-05-05, 04:58 AM

never happened to me...
my dads hdd that he had on his work pc ****ed up...
he still hasnt extracted the data from it and its been a couple years...
well maybe one day if the frikkin prices drop :mad:..

Tay

03-05-05, 03:26 PM

Hehe, when my HD was going out, it would make a ticking noise before locking my pc up. I found if I gave the computer a vigorous kick, it wouldn't lock up (the kick was also good to vent my frustration).

threeme2189

03-06-05, 11:03 AM

thats not a smart thing to do most of the time...

Phrenetical

03-08-05, 10:54 AM

yeah drive clicks are a fairly common impending sign of doom for the hdd.

My download machine does it occasionally instead of booting windows, a good kick fixes it right up, im not worried about the hardware, its a 2.0 celery, them things r tough, and of course is a maxtor 40gb, never happens with seagates,

i have about 10 old seagate HDD's from 500mb up to 8 gig, all of which still post as slaves to this very day, the only hdd i ever pulled apart was 4.1gb maxtor or something which used to click continously while plugged in, everyone who comes over looks at it and seems astounded by it cause they think its my proper hdd.

lol

:)