The X-treme Hard Drive Mod

[CrystalMethod]

Sweet mod! Just a word of caution though.

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

 

[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]

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.

 

[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

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.