The X-treme Hard Drive Mod

[CrystalMethod]

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.

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]

Hard Drive Durabillity

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]

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!

 

[natopotato]

Kool

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]

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
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]

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]

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]

______________________________

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..