The X-treme Hard Drive Mod

[AntiHeiss]

Well this is my newest mod...I have both these hard drives done and mounted in my case so that you can see the platter spinning and the spindle moving. This is really cool cause the spindle moves faster than your eyes almost. The next thing to do is install an LED to match the neon in my case.
This is, I think, the coolest mod I've done. I have a Lian Li PC65 USB case and it has a big window in the side and I have both drives mounted so that they face outward and you can watch till your hearts content. I will have pictures of them in the case later...right now this picture is of one finished and one not yet started. And last but not least...I would suggest to any of you thinking about doing this to NOT DO IT...email me or something if you want to do it. It is rather difficult and if you don't do it right you lose your HD. Enjoy!

[eh?]

you have more cahonas than me:D i was scared that i would ruin my drive...why not fill us in on how you did it?

[Christoph]

That's sexy.
Nice job!!! Have you considered putting those in a clear case?

Edit: ON second thought, that's AMAZING!!! Did you cut off the metal on top? How about an outline of what you did. (I'm not stupid enough to try anything like that with my skill level, I'm just curious).

[Dissolved]

woahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
i love hdd mods!!!!
altho id be well to afraid to get dust in there...
even like a spec of dust could ruin a hdd..
so i wish you luck!

IMO you should have a 3rd drive for backup incase those drives mess up

good job!! :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

[AntiHeiss]

Well alright I will post the process....but keep in mind that this is by request only and if someone decides to try it I can not be held responsible for your mistakes...This is a long post and I did it as a new thread so that you who requested to see it would know that I posted it...

Okay so with that out of the way...If anybody reads this and thinks that I would be worthy of posting it on the overclockers page or on a mod page then LET ME KNOW. I would love to do this and I have PICTURES of every step. Just let me know...thanks.

Here's what you will need:
a) "star" bit
b) plastic wrap...Reynolds Wrap or something like that.
c) double sided tape
d) epoxy
e) a sharp knife (X-acto or something)
f) the ever popular Dremel with cutting wheels.
g) scotch tape or something of that nature.
h) a steady hand, and some luck

1. First of all you need the little "star" bit to unscrew those screws from the hard drive. I had one in my PC toolkit. I have no clue where you can buy them.

2. This is a little strange but it works....don't take the drive cover off yet...go in your bathroom and turn the shower on real hot and let it run with the door closed. This is to super-humidify the room and thus pull all the dust in the air down to the floor. Just make sure that there aren't any little droplets of water flying around everywhere and you'll be alright.

3. Have that piece of plastic wrap standing by, and take the cover off and immediately put the plastic wrap over the open area of the drive. This is to keep the dust out (of course).

4. Now set the drive in a safe place and take the cover from the drive and figure what the best cut would be and cut away with your Dremel.

5. After you have made your cuts be sure to sand the edges down and get all those little pieces of metal out of there and then clean it well.

6. Trace and cut out a piece of plexi glass that is just slightly larger than the area you want to cover.

7. If you wish you can smooth the edges of your plexi so it will sit better. Now put the plexi in and glue the plexi into the cover of the HDD. I used epoxy...just make sure it will stick.

8. Now...if you mounted the window on the inside of the cover then you will have to raise the level of the cover somewhat so the plexi won't touch the spindle. I used double sided tape...with the foamish stuff in the middle. to make a make-shift "gasket" around the edge of the HDD cover.

9. Going back into your humidified bathroom...carefully take the plastic wrap off the HDD and carefully put the HDD cover back on.

10. Make sure to not screw the screws in really tightly or else your "gasket" won't raise the cover level enough and thats BAD.

11. Finally use your scotch tape and tape the edges up. This is to cover the area of the cover that you opened up...so that dust and things can't fly in there and find their way to your platter.

Thats it...you should have a great looking, working hard drive. It is really the coolest thing to watch. And maybe if I end up posting this on a website, I will tell you how to do an LED inside.

So what do you think? Do you think I should apply to post this on the www.overclockers.com website? You think it would be worthwhile? Any opinions are appreciated.

[Kendan]

Show us the pics!!!! Nice mod.

[rogerdugans]

How long ago did you do this? I am wondering about the longevity issues. It sounds like you did a very good job trying to keep dust out but..........I am cheap and expect hard drives to last forever!!!!:D


Does sound like a very cool mod: pics would be good!

[SpeeDj]

Very cool mod, worth a shot at some point. :cool: Must be an experienced modder to try that one, my luck I would end up with a very expensive paper weight.

J

[-=HN=- Wild9]

thats pimp, i got ahold of some old 2 gig hd's, man i opened them up and tore the heck outta the disks inside doing it too, but i never knew the discs were metal. are they all metal discs?

[RainMaQer]

You should definetly go for the front page... What have ya got to lose?;)

Very nice mod:D

[Aesik]

Wow. Wild is the thing that first came to my mind, crazy being the second. What a tempting mod to do. Would you mind posting a pic of the case with the drives installed?

Just for the record, don't go to your local hardware store asking for 'star' bits ;) Ask them for a Torx bit.

[Christoph]

I didn't mean to sound overly suck-uppish, but thanks for posting what you did.
Definitely submit it to Joe (http://overclockers.com/articles219/). Good luck!

[Oni]

Originally posted by AntiHeiss
1. First of all you need the little "star" bit to unscrew those screws from the hard drive. I had one in my PC toolkit. I have no clue where you can buy them.

I believe they are Torx screws, and can be undone w/ a torx bit for a screwdriver like we all have in our "rip our computer apart" cases (you all have those, right)? You can also buy torx drivers at a place like Canadian Tire (http://www.canadiantire.ca) or a like store if you're south of our border.

Originally posted by -=HN=- Wild9
thats pimp, i got ahold of some old 2 gig hd's, man i opened them up and tore the heck outta the disks inside doing it too, but i never knew the discs were metal. are they all metal discs?

I believe that the discs inside the HD itself are ceramic, like AMD processors are made out of, just w/ a special magnetic-type coating on them.

[PsycoPhreak]

Heh heh heh, this really gives me an idea..heh heh...with all this EL cable and EL sheet i have...heh heh...just what I need...more ideas....i'll be back..heh heh

BTW..nice job on the mod, its nice to know there are people out there that are just as nuts as I am...:D :D :D

[Optimus2575]

super sweet. gotta dig around for my ol 3-7g hdd:D

[IcarusFalling]

My only question is if you are opening the HDD in a very humid room is there not a concern of condensation building up inside the casing, since it was in a humid room that you opened up the casing.

Don't take this the wrong way, it is a FREAKING COOL mod.:)

BTW where are the pics!!!!! MORE PICS!!!!!!:D

nice english skillz in that first sentence eh?

[GERRY136]

awsome.
ill try it on my 500mb hd.

[SteenkyBastage]

at the risk of damage....

i think it'd be nice to take a marker (that glows under blacklight) and attempt to "light up" the dots inside the platter (not the actual platter, the inside part) as well as the arm. then stick the thing together under a blacklight and see how that'd look.

yeah, yeah, i know it's adding more risk of geting dust or something in it to mess it up, but it'd be slick if it worked.

[Christoph]

Originally posted by SteenkyBastage
at the risk of damage....

i think it'd be nice to take a marker (that glows under blacklight) and attempt to "light up" the dots inside the platter (not the actual platter, the inside part) as well as the arm. then stick the thing together under a blacklight and see how that'd look.

yeah, yeah, i know it's adding more risk of geting dust or something in it to mess it up, but it'd be slick if it worked.

Just don't use a that new 120 GB SCSI from your RAID 0 array.
I've got an old 200 MB HD that I'd love to take apart. I might even try that mad mod if I get enough experience elsewhere to feel confident about it.

[VashTheStampede]

It would be really cool if you could find a minature neon light, that didn't screw up the HDD, and mount it inside the HDD with window mod and wire it so it pulls power from the HDD's power connector.

~Vash~

[CrystalMethod]

Sweet mod! Just a word of caution though.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/keith_lee/HDD.jpg

The circled is a "rare earth magnet". The cover you removed acts as magnetic shield. You can't see the magnet itself in the pic, but trust me, it's there. There's also another one on the other side of the reading arm. Be very careful of how close you place the drives together.

[BinarySuperman]

i guess the mod would have to look like this to be safe...

[AntiHeiss]

lol, when you do this mod...the whole hard drive loses its sheilding. Its not just that one part that is at risk. Even placing that one piece of metal over that one area to shield that one part would do virtually no good. Of course its a risky mod, and you don't have to tell me what makes it dangerous...that is why I told no one else to do it unless they were aware of the risks. Don't mean to sound rude here, but I'm not a newbie, and I am well aware of the risk involved. Not like it was an important HDD anyway.

[dreadlord79]

Put that thing on the front page! With all of the pics! Just make sure that the first page of the article is the bigest warning anyone has ever seen! :) That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Awesome job!!!

[SKE_Mr_Pink]

Sweet mod.

I will have to agree with AntiHeiss. Adding that piece of steel to shield the magnet would be useless. Dont get me wrong but i am pretty sure that there is nothing that can effectivly "Shield" magnetic forces. If their is then let me know... as i am sure someone will!

Just my 2 bits:beer:

[PsycoPhreak]

lead....lead shields magnetic fields, but then that would be a moot point, why cut a window out if your going to cover it with lead...heh heh...but..lead shields magnetic fields.

hmmm..I wonder about lead crystal....heh heh...

[rogerdugans]

How about pics showing the drive in the case? How visible is it?

[dreadlord79]

I once watched a glass blower work color into a glass crane and to get the red color he was using paper thin sheets of gold and heating into the glass. I wonder if there is a way to some how mix lead into plexiglass so it would still be clear but would also sheild the drive? Take some paper thin lead or lead dust (wear a resperator!) and mix it into some clear epoxy or silicone and then let it dry?

[SKE_Mr_Pink]

Ok. after reading this I can understand how they could shield a magnetic field to a point. But for the record i still believe that there is no material that will completly insulate or stop magnetism from passing through it. It will just help bend it around the item you want to shield. Confused? So am I Just read this and make up your own mind!

http://www.tpub.com/neets/book1/chapter1/1j.htm

Just my 2 Bits

[Arkamedies]

Great Mod.. :-)

I had a spare 10 gig drive here that I decided to play with after reading the worries over the magnets. Well, the magnets are only strong on the side facing the swing arm. The side you can see by looking at them is so weak that it won't even hold to metal or even to the other magnets outer side. Face them at each other on the correct sides and you can draw blood as they come together (go ahead and ask how I figured that out).

Very odd that there would be so much concern over the magnets effect on another drive when there is nothing special about the .020" thick aluminum casing.

They must not have been overly worried about dust either, there is a desecant (s?) "dry-pack" inside the drives housing also.

Also, if you look where the flat cable goes into the drive, there is no special sealing there either. it is just the foam seal that goes over it.

I am not so sure these drives are as fragile as folks think. I am going to go buy another drive on friday and using all of the precautions described above, I am going to do the mod and place it in a test machine for longevity testing.

Great Mod..... love it!

[Jeniva]

Super Job!..Thats sweet....I dont want to risk killing my new 40GB drive...but if i get big enough kahuna's to try it..i'll do it on a older drive...Great job though..looks perfect!

[Wa11y]

Originally posted by Arkamedies
I am not so sure these drives are as fragile as folks think.

They're not. Some newer hard drives can handle a physical shock up to 350Gs. Basically, you'd have to fire than bad boy out of a cannon to get that.

[Arkamedies]

Other than impact and magnetic damage, exactly how fragile is the disk itself? I looked at the way the "fingers" on the arm touch the surface, and it looked like the plates are prety darn firm surface wise. :eh?:

[Sworkhard]

Tried it on a 40mb drive of mine and had no problems what so ever. It was dusty inside before I took the tops off!!

[IFMU]

This was a mod that I saw some time ago, still as awesome... Never thought about actually doing it.. but now that I know its as easy as it sounds, Just might give it a shot on some older hdd's I have around here.....

[bigbenji]

i can't believe it still works, great job!

[twump]

yes it is risky but HD's aren't as fragile as most think. at my old school my teacher had a HD with the top off and he ran it with the top off. he did it so people could see, and it booted everytime.dust got in there, he ran it next to all his other devides and NEVER had a problem. I think he used to drive for about 2-3 years. when he moved to nevada it was still working.


btw that is a pretty cool mod there

[twump]

yes it is risky but HD's aren't as fragile as most think. at my old school my teacher had a HD with the top off and he ran it with the top off. he did it so people could see, and it booted everytime.dust got in there, he ran it next to all his other devides and NEVER had a problem. I think he used to drive for about 2-3 years. when he moved to nevada it was still working.


btw that is a pretty cool mod there

[AntiHeiss]

Thanks, and thanks :D

But really, I submitted the mod to Joe and you should see it up on the overclockers.com page soon. I also want to say thanks to all of you who posted on this thread. I'm like "whoa." Really I never expected to have that much of a reaction to it....and I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who complimented my mod and encouraged me further. I do appreciate it.

Thanks again.

[WillysNut]

Simply beautiful! Great workmanship! I'm envious!! ...if I could only find the time! Hope the magnet thing doesn't cause any issues.

[CrystalMethod]

Originally posted by Arkamedies
Other than impact and magnetic damage, exactly how fragile is the disk itself? I looked at the way the "fingers" on the arm touch the surface, and it looked like the plates are prety darn firm surface wise. :eh?:

It's not really the disks you have to worry about, it's the reading arm being thown out of adjustment, and the bearings that the drives spin on. Some one in our shipping dept dropped a 40 Gig maxtor the other day. Thing sounded like a metal grinder when we tested it, afterwards. It was so loud the the sales people in the office up front came down to the RMA dept, just to see what the noise was comming from.

[Darrenct]

Alright guys, I'm going to solve the question about what kind of beating these things can take. I have a 340 MB Hard Drive out of my old 486. I'm gonna run a couple benchmarks on it... Then take it apart and do a couple more. I'll start out by throwing a little dust in there. I'll slowly give it more physical abuse until it finally dies. Then I'll get back to you and let you know how the whole process went.

[Crash893]

Originally posted by PsycoPhreak
lead....lead shields magnetic fields, but then that would be a moot point, why cut a window out if your going to cover it with lead...heh heh...but..lead shields magnetic fields.

hmmm..I wonder about lead crystal....heh heh...

first of youll spend more on lead glass than anything else in your computer ( if its made to fit)

second lead glass is fine if you want a nice 2-3 inches of glass sitting on top of your hdd

3rd i though any sort of metal will stop magnitc waves why not build a small cage aound the arm with enogh room to let it swing


4th i say just leave it beucase it kicks @$$

[SteenkyBastage]

well, i gave mine a shot... 1.2gb maxtor hard drive i found laying around. might as well have been trash as far as i was concerned, so i wasn't worried about damaging it.

they're not all that delicate. i didn't bother with the humidified air. all i did was have a piece of saran wrap (sp?) that i put over it once i took the cover off. after noting the saran wrap actually touched the arm (the arm was above the outer case sides) i simply took the saran wrap off, and let it sit open. i plugged it in, let it do it's thing (sitting on top of my mini-fridge) and it worked great.

"well that was easy" i thought. so i scavanged about and found the plastic box/cover off an old thermaltake ram heatspreader. i cut the plastic to fit the hard drive, and placed it over the disk itself. fired the puppy up...still all going great.

next i drill holes in the plastic where the screw holes were in the hard drive itself, then zip-tied the plastic cover to the hard drive. now here's where the problem occured. somehow (dont ask me how) one of the tiny tiny magnets on the top arm ended up flipped over (it was pushing away from the disk, making the end of the arm bend up slightly from the disk). this caused the disk upon bootup to click back and forth, but not work anymore.

well, i ripped off the plastic cover and attempted "brainsurgery" on the magnet, but was unable to get it properly back in place. so the drive was shot. i still cant figure out how the magnet flipped while it was under the plastic cover.

the final stages involved me completely disassembleing the platters, arms, magnets, etc... was fun tearing it up, altho i must say it would have been better to have it functional and open.

ahh well, i'm off on a quest to find more old hard drives from friends to re-attempt this feat.

[Crash893]

if you really want some fun find a ooooooold hdd

( i found one at a fleamarket it was liek a 200k or something just insanely small

me and my brother took it apart and found that it was full of i'd say 1/8th thick 5.25inch platers ( 3 or 4 i think) we sharpened them and were throwing them around the woods sticking them in trees


it was like the thing from the movie preditor 2

[dreadlord79]

Used up circular saw blades are really good for sticking into thing to! When I was working construction with a friend, we used to have target practice on the job site with them. We were doing this in apartments and some times going right through the walls! Its a good thing no one was ever one the other side! :eek:

[natopotato]

here is an article sombody posted a while ago w full instructions

http://www.bit-tech.net/article/66/


again very cool i think im gona practice on my 400mb then my 300mb then my5gig then ill do my 40gig and mount it on the front of my pc behind a window

[Loopin]

Hey guys,

I'm sort of a newbie to modding... but I got the ballz to do that to my 20 gig... I know about the precautions needed to do so, but I still figure I can do this in about 15 - 20 minutes if I prepare a few things before I start... I think that speed is sort of a key ingredient to avoiding dust. Also, don't you guys think that it would be funny to leave something inside the drive... say velcrowed somewhere safe in an empty space... like a watch face or pen lid? I think that would be hillarious... sort of like "the I got lazy" syndrome! LoL.

Anyway, I'll try to post pics when I do this mod, don't have a lot of time right now to do that cuz I'm working on my nomad jukebox right now. MY PLEXI COMES IN TOMORROW!!!!! YEAH!!!!
Soon though.

Talk to you all soon.

[Darrenct]

Good luck man, don't rush it too much, once the HD is coverd, no dust is getting in(or at least not enough to hurt). Just make sure you figure out how to mount that bad boy somewhere you can see your artwork.
You should go buy a plastic spider and mount him in there. That would be so cool, If anyone asks, say it got a virus.

[Loopin]

Originally posted by Darrenct
Good luck man, don't rush it too much, once the HD is coverd, no dust is getting in(or at least not enough to hurt). Just make sure you figure out how to mount that bad boy somewhere you can see your artwork.
You should go buy a plastic spider and mount him in there. That would be so cool, If anyone asks, say it got a virus.
______________________________

LoL, I was thinking of just cutting a hole in the back of my box and using a longer ide cable to run through the hole and then I was going to mount the drive against the wall. What do you think of that.... Then I could also say that I needed to quarentine it!

[IFMU]

You deffinately got some big basketballs mah friend :D
I like the idea of leaving something inside... thats good...

as far as mounting in the wall, I dunno Id personally like to leave in the case, against a window or something... but ah well.. to each their own...

[Christoph]

Loopin, I won't accuse you of either, but the difference between bravery and stupidity is that bravery knows its limits. I'm all for it if you think you haev enough experience to do it, but I'd hate to see you come back here with a broken HD. Good luck.
Unfortunately, I've probably got an unreliable HD from an out of business company, so I may attempt this soon.

[Lord_Humungous]

A few things I thought I'd add.

Hard drive platters make GREAT mirrors. I use the little laptop HD platters to help see behind stuff in cramped situations - like when I drop a screw or such. They're very reflective and tough enough to survive get bashed around inside a toolbox.

A friend and I did computer repair and upgraded a lot of old systems. Every time we got an old nasty HD that was out of warranty we yanked the platters and hung 'em on a wall. I'm not one for home decorating but we had an entire wall done in neo-High-Tech.


A word on GOOP. I love the stuff and use it all the time. I have noticed though that the solvent used in goop is really nasty. I'm surpised that it didn't eat the oxide coating off of the HD platters.

[Loopin]

well, I'm not worried about the drive to much cuz I got it for almost free. and I got it all backed up anyway. And a lot of people would say that I'm crazy anyway... when you can travel at about 120km/h (apx. 70 or 75 mp/h I think) then people tend to turn their heads.... Hail to the hackers movie!

[Darrenct]

Originally posted by Loopin
And a lot of people would say that I'm crazy anyway... when you can travel at about 120km/h (apx. 70 or 75 mp/h I think) then people tend to turn their heads.... Hail to the hackers movie!

Huh? When I go somewhere, I go 115 mph the whole way, that's a whopping 180+ kmph for all you canadians.

[dreadlord79]

Hey, Loopin. :) If you are going with the virus idea and are going to put a spider inside (cool), why not paint the spinder with black light reflective paint or buy one that glows when exposed to UV? This way, when you have your system on, it glows with a really evil looking intent! Just a thought. :)

[Trieber]

Originally posted by Darrenct


Huh? When I go somewhere, I go 115 mph the whole way, that's a whopping 180+ kmph for all you canadians.

Dude, I do 60 in school zones... Have to slow down for them a bit.


LoL, j/j.

Awesome mod btw, I dunno if I'd try it, I have a defunct HDD right now, but it might still be salvageable, might have to experiment with a PoS though. Very good job though.

[Annoyingrob]

Man, I gotta try this to my old 4gig maxtor, then howabout like 4x20gb (raid 0+1 anyone). Wouldn't that look awesome if you had 4 hd's mounted in the window of your pc, possibly with some glow wire inside the hds. That would be a real head-turner.

Hey, this might be a very lucrative business oppourtunity. If a pc mod company (or just a person) were to sell premodded hd's. There would be a definite market for these. People who like them, but don't have the....uhhh....male organs to try.

[PsycoPhreak]

It would be nice for someone to sell them pre- modded, but then theres the problems with warranty and defects that can not be gauranteed, look at it like this, ...you buy one pre-modded..lets say a 40 gig drive...install it..and it works, but dies after a few weeks...what do you do?

I doubt anyone in their right mind would ever want the responsability of having to deal with something like that, just not cost effective.

[wolfsid]

Originally posted by Loopin

______________________________

LoL, I was thinking of just cutting a hole in the back of my box and using a longer ide cable to run through the hole and then I was going to mount the drive against the wall. What do you think of that.... Then I could also say that I needed to quarentine it!


I like the Harddrive mod and i am thinking about doing it on one of my old 5 gig hds wont care if it breaks but if it works i can try it again on a newer one..maybe if i am bored..:D

[Annoyingrob]

well, i just bought a sheet of 32x32x1/16" lucite. Time to go find a guinnea pig hd.

:p



Edit: Yes! first post on a new page. lol


Another edit: Here's my attempt at a window for my hd:

http://www.geocities.com/robsmods/hd.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/robsmods/hd.jpg - img doesnt seem to be working very well. here's the url.

I want to try one of maxtor hard drives to get that cut out in the top. This is a really old maxtor (120mb) so i had to replace the whole top because there was no pattern to cut out. It turned out all right, but i needed to clean it better (lol, dust on the inside). THhe foam around the edge looked like crap so I put some electrical tape on the sides to cover it up. I lost the screws a long time ago (I took the top off a few months back when i was thinking of doing this before) so i just grabbed a bunch of cool-looking red screws and jammed them in there (so long screw holes). It still works more or less. I cant decode the jumpers so i never got it working as a primary hd. as a secondary it would come up as empty, 120mb free. from what i recall i had formatted it so this is fine.

Now I think it's almost time to move on to my 2 or 4.3 gig.

[shauns]

that would be awsome w/ a UV light in it

[Blue Jester_2112]

First of all, your completely insane, second, that is one of the best mods I have ever seen.

Kudos! :D

[Annoyingrob]

lol, Blue Jester: your avatar reminds me of Millhouse from simpsons. They look very similar to me. hmm.......

[Christoph]

Happy birthday, annoyingrob!
For your birthday, I'm giving you a lifetime supply of water for a watercooling system at an amazingly low price and great availability. I've got it all set up. Just go over to any faucet in your house and enjoy the wet goodness (not that kind).

[IFMU]

Hey guys.. heres another posting on this.. its in another thread - hdd modding...

http://www.bp6.com/pics/holodeck2/reviews/hd%20mod/hd.htm

[Annoyingrob]

Yay. Somebody noticed my birthday. good ol....uhh...17. oooh

[Christoph]

Originally posted by Annoyingrob
Yay. Somebody noticed my birthday. good ol....uhh...17. oooh

Only 4 more years and you'll be a real person!!! Just kidding, of course. You're as real as any of us are.