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Use/rent Clean room space for cheap?

L

lasergecko

Senior member
Does anyone know in the SF bay area where someone can use/rent clean room space for cheap? I need to swap platters on some hard drives.

Or anyone know a service that will swap hard drive platters for cheap?

I'm looking for a friend who doesn't have 2 grand to spend on a professional service.

 
I would leave that to the professionals, call up some data recovery centers in the area, they should be able to help.
 
You can make a temp clean room in the bathroom, something about steam weighing down the dust particles. I'm sure you can google around and find some information.
 
Does that even work? I thought the platters/read heads had some special, per-drive, firmware-stored calibration.
 
Tried everything else? Swapping controller cards? The freezer trick?

I'd just set up a clean area in my house - vacuum everything really well and put some plastic sheets down. Get some latex gloves too and maybe one of those plastic hats.
 
I've tried swapping controller cards. I've got two drives with the same firmware, PN, etc.
The drive makes a humming sound when it tries to spin up. It was the suggest that the motor might be siezed up.

What is the freezer trick?
 
Originally posted by: lasergecko
I've tried swapping controller cards. I've got two drives with the same firmware, PN, etc.
The drive makes a humming sound when it tries to spin up. It was the suggest that the motor might be siezed up.

What is the freezer trick?
Click to expand...

Basically put the drive in a ziploc bag (tight seal here so moisture does not get in), put in the freezer, and quickly take it out and plug it in. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. This actually worked a few times for me.
 
I just found a thread that suggests a fish tank or similar plastic box with a fan evacuating air and a pair of rubber gloves à la old films about nuclear bombs. That would be sweet to have even if it doesn't work for this.

On the other hand, I have heard legends of old school people running hard drives open to the air, so the whole clean room thing might be a myth... sure they do it in the factory but those drives need to run for years... this one needs to run for a couple of hours tops while you get the data off...
 
You could probably get away with the "shower steam trick" though I would not use the drive again after. If you do, only use it for part of your backup rotation so if it fails you don't really lose anything as it's just backups of existing data. (then replace the drive so you still have backups).

You could maybe rig something up with an aquarium too. Steam/vacuum chamber it or something. Maybe someone can give more insight on this but think a clean "box" would be easier then a full room.
 
my harddrive on my macbook died with just faint buzzing and clicking sounds. Following advice i found on the web i took it out and slammed.it hard into my hand. I guess something was stuck because i managed to get all my files off it after that
 
Originally posted by: Atheus
Tried everything else? Swapping controller cards? The freezer trick?

I'd just set up a clean area in my house - vacuum everything really well and put some plastic sheets down. Get some latex gloves too and maybe one of those plastic hats.
Click to expand...

and a bunch of ionic breezes... then take a long shower, sit in the room naked for awhile while the ionic breezes work (maybe 12 hours?)

then have at it.
 
Originally posted by: ecopure
my harddrive on my macbook died with just faint buzzing and clicking sounds. Following advice i found on the web i took it out and slammed.it hard into my hand. I guess something was stuck because i managed to get all my files off it after that
Click to expand...

It's funny since I was going to suggest that. If the motor is seized it may unstuck it. But I figured it would be a crazy recommendation, guess not. 😛
 
need more than a clean room..ever try taking those things apart for the batteries?
some of those screws are in pretty goddamned tight. risk of damaging stuff trying to get it out ispretty high.
 
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Originally posted by: ecopure
my harddrive on my macbook died with just faint buzzing and clicking sounds. Following advice i found on the web i took it out and slammed.it hard into my hand. I guess something was stuck because i managed to get all my files off it after that
Click to expand...

It's funny since I was going to suggest that. If the motor is seized it may unstuck it. But I figured it would be a crazy recommendation, guess not. 😛
Click to expand...

I'd only want to do that if I was sure the heads were parked, otherwise you risk damaging the platters severely.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
need more than a clean room..ever try taking those things apart for the batteries?
some of those screws are in pretty goddamned tight. risk of damaging stuff trying to get it out ispretty high.
Click to expand...

wat?
 
Originally posted by: PottedMeat
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
need more than a clean room..ever try taking those things apart for the batteries?
some of those screws are in pretty goddamned tight. risk of damaging stuff trying to get it out ispretty high.
Click to expand...

wat?
Click to expand...

This might be history in the making here.
 
If you know what you are doing, most universities with micro/nano fabs will have class 10/100/10000 clean rooms. Generally they charge $30-$40 per hour for use of the space after you receive training on putting on the clean room garb correctly. If you are affiliated with a local university you should be able to email the head of the micro/nano fabrication centers and ask for some clean room time.
 
Originally posted by: finite automaton
Originally posted by: PottedMeat
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
need more than a clean room..ever try taking those things apart for the batteries?
some of those screws are in pretty goddamned tight. risk of damaging stuff trying to get it out ispretty high.
Click to expand...

wat?
Click to expand...

This might be history in the making here.
Click to expand...

this is what i get for multitasking lol🙂

magnets!!! not batteries...

bah

anyways the things are probably calibrated once put together to adjust for any minor physical differences. so it might not work with a different platter, let alone after you remove the read arm. just a guess.
 
clean rooms are more for long life after the swap...My brother swapped platters right on his desk and was able to get the data he needed then trashed the drive.
 
Originally posted by: ecopure
my harddrive on my macbook died with just faint buzzing and clicking sounds. Following advice i found on the web i took it out and slammed.it hard into my hand. I guess something was stuck because i managed to get all my files off it after that
Click to expand...

This has worked for me on a Laptop drive in the past also. I dropped the damned thing and it started reading. I managed to pull almost 60GB of data from it too. It probably could have kept being used...
 
Originally posted by: amdhunter
Originally posted by: ecopure
my harddrive on my macbook died with just faint buzzing and clicking sounds. Following advice i found on the web i took it out and slammed.it hard into my hand. I guess something was stuck because i managed to get all my files off it after that
Click to expand...

This has worked for me on a Laptop drive in the past also. I dropped the damned thing and it started reading. I managed to pull almost 60GB of data from it too. It probably could have kept being used...
Click to expand...

My grandpa used to believe pounding the side of the TV fixed it too...probably not the best method to use though.
 
Research the drive model before doing the swap.
Some newer drives do put the drive firmware and layout that essentially marries the board to the platters of that specific drive. So you could end up with two dead drives, instead of one. They store the firmware in sectors that are marked good for that specific drive and only have a sector location stored in the boards rom. So the board you swap may go to the old sector to find the firmware and boot info only to not find what it needs.

I know the newer 500GB+ western digital drives cannot swap boards.
 
Originally posted by: Modelworks
Research the drive model before doing the swap.
Some newer drives do put the drive firmware and layout that essentially marries the board to the platters of that specific drive. So you could end up with two dead drives, instead of one. They store the firmware in sectors that are marked good for that specific drive and only have a sector location stored in the boards rom. So the board you swap may go to the old sector to find the firmware and boot info only to not find what it needs.

I know the newer 500GB+ western digital drives cannot swap boards.
Click to expand...

QFT..there are usually workarounds for even these though. TIVO/PVR groups are excellent resources for hacks. You may be even able to find someone that can do it for you for a few bucks if you have enough trust to send them the two drives and your data 🙂

If anyone does do this and has things deemed illegal I would really think about it.

It's not like we all haven't heard of idiots that mutilated someone on film and figured their local 'photomat' dude would be cool about it and keep the developed pictures on the down low.
 
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