What if you opened your HDD...

[Philippine Mango]

What if you opened your HDD in a fairly dust free environment, took a magnet and hovered it above the HDD and flipped the magnet again. Closed up the drive and tried to access it? (remember you dont' care if the data is gone). Could you format/partition the drive agian?

 

[Pariah]

The drive would still work, but the dust would likely damage the drive to the point of being unusable (unreadable sectors, scratches, etc), the magnet would do nothing.

 

[mettleh3d]

i thought HDs were vaccum sealed and opening it would destroy it. <--based off speculation

 

[Nocturnal]

How do you recreate a dust free environment anyway?

 

[Pariah]

Hard drives require air to "float" the read/write head over the platters, which is why they don't work above a certain altitude (or in a vacuum). Most modern hard drives have a filtered blow hole on them to regulate the pressure.

 

[HomicidalSloth]

Yeah, hard drives are not vaccum sealed. They do have a hole in them to keep the pressure equal. You can find it if you look around on most hard drives, a lot of the time there will be a warning sticker pointing at the hole warning you not to cover it. It is, of course, filtered to keep dust, etc. out.

 

[Yanagi]

As people pointed out the magnet relies on air to float/fly/hover over the disks. Basicly the same idea as with airplanes. They have a microthin filter so no dust will get through. They are extremely sensitive to dust so once oyu open it = goner!

 

[otispunkmeyer]

how do people do them window mods on their HDD's then? i mean surely even a small amount of dust would just ruin it completely

 

[quakefiend420]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
how do people do them window mods on their HDD's then? i mean surely even a small amount of dust would just ruin it completely

i remember someone saying something in a thread a month or so ago about someone tried to recreate a clean room in a steamy bathroom...the idea being the steam would keep dust out of the air...let me see if i can find it

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: quakefiend420

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
how do people do them window mods on their HDD's then? i mean surely even a small amount of dust would just ruin it completely

i remember someone saying something in a thread a month or so ago about someone tried to recreate a clean room in a steamy bathroom...the idea being the steam would keep dust out of the air...let me see if i can find it

If thats true, you can imagine Saunas getting a lot of business from people with HDD's and their window kits.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Yanagi
As people pointed out the magnet relies on air to float/fly/hover over the disks. Basicly the same idea as with airplanes. They have a microthin filter so no dust will get through. They are extremely sensitive to dust so once oyu open it = goner!

thats not true at all. There was a site with a guy who windowed his HDD by opening it up, putting the uncovered HDD in a box (tupperware like), cut the top out and pasted some plastic, reattached it and claims it works fine...

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: Yanagi
As people pointed out the magnet relies on air to float/fly/hover over the disks. Basicly the same idea as with airplanes. They have a microthin filter so no dust will get through. They are extremely sensitive to dust so once oyu open it = goner!

thats not true at all. There was a site with a guy who windowed his HDD by opening it up, putting the uncovered HDD in a box (tupperware like), cut the top out and pasted some plastic, reattached it and claims it works fine...

Extremely lucky as well. As far as the air acting as a cushion at speed... that is indeed true.

 

[theMan]

all i know is, i wouldnt do it with a hard drive ive bought in the last 10 years.

 

[kitkat22]

With the sauna philosphy, wouldn't the high humidity cause condensation on the platters? If there is sufficient dust in the air the water on the platters can pick up dust and after the water evaporates leave the dust on the platters?

 

[CrispyFried]

If you used a magnet like that the low level info would be destroyed as well as microcode and other info in the manufactureres area of the platter. The drive would be useless unless you ran some serious (and expensive) utils on it.

As far as putting a window in Ive heard of many peeps doing that and claiming the drive worked. Never seen it myself though.

 

[Rock Hydra]

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
If you used a magnet like that the low level info would be destroyed as well as microcode and other info in the manufactureres area of the platter. The drive would be useless unless you ran some serious (and expensive) utils on it.

As far as putting a window in Ive heard of many peeps doing that and claiming the drive worked. Never seen it myself though.

That Yoshi guy from TSS did it. He practically did it right on air. But he suggested putting the HDD in a VERY clean tupperware bowl and cover immediately. He even put an LED in it.

 

[PleasurePaulie64]

Why is really the question here......

 

[Vegito]

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: PleasurePaulie64
Why is really the question here......

I was just thinking the same thing!

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
If you used a magnet like that the low level info would be destroyed as well as microcode and other info in the manufactureres area of the platter. The drive would be useless unless you ran some serious (and expensive) utils on it.

You don't have a magnet in your house strong enough to flip bits in your hard drive. Ironically, the strongest magnet in your house is the rare earth magnet already in your hard drive moving the read head assembly. You need something like a laboratory degausser to wipe out a hard drive.

Hard drives are built in class 100 cleanrooms (100 parts per cubic foot (.5 microns or larger)). By comparison, your typical office has about 10,000 times more airborne particles per cubic foot that can damage a hard drive. If you want to open your hard drive, go ahead, just don't do it with a drive you want to continue using. The drive will still function, but anything that got into the enclosure could potentially corrupt data. A hard drive head flys over the platters at 1/3 the height of a fingerprint, so it doesn't take a very big particle to cause problems with your drive.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: forcesho

QFT

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
If you used a magnet like that the low level info would be destroyed as well as microcode and other info in the manufactureres area of the platter. The drive would be useless unless you ran some serious (and expensive) utils on it.

You don't have a magnet in your house strong enough to flip bits in your hard drive. Ironically, the strongest magnet in your house is the rare earth magnet already in your hard drive moving the read head assembly. You need something like a laboratory degausser to wipe out a hard drive.

Hard drives are built in class 100 cleanrooms (100 parts per cubic foot (.5 microns or larger)). By comparison, your typical office has about 10,000 times more airborne particles per cubic foot that can damage a hard drive. If you want to open your hard drive, go ahead, just don't do it with a drive you want to continue using. The drive will still function, but anything that got into the enclosure could potentially corrupt data. A hard drive head flys over the platters at 1/3 the height of a fingerprint, so it doesn't take a very big particle to cause problems with your drive.

That, and microcode isn't stored on the platters.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
If you used a magnet like that the low level info would be destroyed as well as microcode and other info in the manufactureres area of the platter. The drive would be useless unless you ran some serious (and expensive) utils on it.

You don't have a magnet in your house strong enough to flip bits in your hard drive. Ironically, the strongest magnet in your house is the rare earth magnet already in your hard drive moving the read head assembly. You need something like a laboratory degausser to wipe out a hard drive.

Hard drives are built in class 100 cleanrooms (100 parts per cubic foot (.5 microns or larger)). By comparison, your typical office has about 10,000 times more airborne particles per cubic foot that can damage a hard drive. If you want to open your hard drive, go ahead, just don't do it with a drive you want to continue using. The drive will still function, but anything that got into the enclosure could potentially corrupt data. A hard drive head flys over the platters at 1/3 the height of a fingerprint, so it doesn't take a very big particle to cause problems with your drive.

1/3 the height of a finger print? I find that hard to believe, sure a human hair but not a finger print...

 

[JDCentral]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

1/3 the height of a finger print? I find that hard to believe, sure a human hair but not a finger print...

Why? It's a glass platter with a film sprayed onto it...
And they go through A LOT of effort to get this very, very, very, very smooth.

 

[Elcs]

Im slightly suprised or perhaps quite looking forward to some manufacturer make a few Windowed HDD's. Its a pretty novel thing.

I dont know what safety issues would arise due to having HDD's encased in plastic but it sounds pretty cool.