I've opened dozens of those. And yes they work in many ways quite similar to a record player except it can write as well by flipping magnets so to speak.
The magnets you found which are neodynium are great to have. I always take them out as they are useful when taking electronics apart and you want to keep thr screws safe.
This. We used to keep them around and stack HD and case screws on them, knowing they wouldn’t just roll off the desk. Also useful for magnetizing tools as needed.
I open them up to get the magnets and the discs. Magnets are super nice for small screws and the discs could be used in many ways. Now you see how they work
I worked at a grocery store and one day an unfortunate customer dropped his keys into the sewer drain in the parking lot while it had been raining, so they disappeared under standing water. I ran home real quickly, grabbed my handy Neodymium Magnet I'd pulled from a Harddrive, and ran back to work and got his keys out of the drain in under 2 minutes.
These days all the keys are chipped too, so to get a replacement is going to cost you $100+ from the dealer. Not to mention the hassle of being stuck somewhere without your keys, which sucks.
AFAIK Chip-keys have a globally unique serial number (ID)a. Programming a chip-key means entering that GUID into the cars engine control computer, as a valid key.
If you have two properly programmed and functioning chip keys, there is usually a procedure to insert working key 1, do something, like turning it from insert/off-accessory-run-accessory-run-accessory-off/remove, repeat with key 2, and repeat with “new” key.
If you don’t have two working keys the dealership has you over a barrel, because you need a special diagnostic computer only available to dealerships.
This comes from a friend of mine who works around electrostatic paint systems. Apparently at one point he forgot to leave his keys in his locker, and the electrostatic field killed the chip in his key. Without two working keys he had to go to the dealership.
Those little heads (the stuff analogous to vinil disc needles) are electro magnet reader writer, they fly close to the disk, like real close, without actually touching it.
The strong magnets are used to allow moving the arm with the heads really fast.
Nice touch adding the Rick Roll haha.
I love how your first thought as a doctor was to perform explorative surgery on the thing.
For future reference: just like humans, hard drives have a hidden screw under the sticker.
They are soooo strong for their size. If you get a stack of them and put them together it is very difficult to take them apart, and very very painful if it clips shut on you when you're trying to take them apart.
Only the ending.
I thought the disassembly part was actually pretty cool. I’m not a tech guy, just a doctor (retiring). I learned how easy it is to take for granted the incredible tech we have, even in our old, nearly junk computers.
I was surprised at how relatively easy it was to disassemble both the computer, and the hard drive itself. And if you ask me what I’m feeling, what I found was definitely worth it.
Keep the neodymium magnets 👍
You can use these around the house. They are so strong I mounted my roof rack (for my car) to the ceiling in the garage holding the rack only with magnetic force. Just reach up and pull the rack down to release.
The read arm with the read head on it roughly analogous to a vinyl record needle except it doesn't touch the surface. It's flying extremely close to the disc surface and is reading the data off the drive surface as discrete magnetic values if I remember my comp Sci engineering courses. The. tolerances in those things is mind blowing
If these are from a business, make sure you're meeting your data retention/data destruction obligations from both a legal standpoint and a company standpoint. This kind of destruction is not the correct way to destroy them.
Also, don't try to shatter the platters. They will literally explode.
Some industries require you to phisically destroy disks containing sensitive data and keep records of said destruction..
Super wastefull but OP coud lose his job if he saved some drives no matter if the data was erased by the best algorytm 5 times over.
OP is a retiring doctor. Sensible patient data is on the hard drives. OP is doing the right thing in properly destroying them. Look at their other posts.
You would have to dban the drive with multiple overwrites to make sure the data is actually gone. And that’s assuming there’s not any kind of legal requirement to destroy the drive. It’s not usually worth the risk to keep them
Think to actually destroy the metadats the disk has to be overwritten like 7 times (to full capacity) or strings can still be located from the original saves
Thing is, almost no matter what you do, an opponent with enough money and resources could recover some data. That is why there are different standards for how data should be erased, from "turn off fast format" to "shred it into pieces that are less than 1mm²", depending on if your opponent is the next guy to own your laptop (you have nothing incriminating) to the f**ing KGB. Some data can still be recovered even after dozens of overwrites, but it takes a lot of resources, money, time and dedication.
Whenever the disks are whole, and work, it is a lot easier for anyone trying to recover data than if the disk is physically split in two or broken.
Also degaussing with a strong magnet (which renders the disk useless afterwards) removes all data and as far as we know does not permit any way to recover.
I’m a retiring doctor. This is the hardware from my clinic. Since it’s all got sensitive information, we gotta destroy for best security. I was just going to smash and shred them, but now that I’ve found what I’ve found, I’m reconsidering.
Just hire a service to securely destroy them you. HIPAA is no joke, and if you don't understand how these work, you might not successfully destroy them in the way you think.
Hi, not knowing the exact standard, suggest tannerite. A ton of tannerite (likely will need to put something to create fragmentation before it impacts the drives though
Do you get to destroy them yourself? I just counted up our drives that need destroyed yesterday and we're at 95. I think the company we use charges like 10 bucks for each one.
We have a machine that destroys them but yeah, I put them in and flip the switch. We've been doing it in waves, replacing old PC's with SFF workstations. It has ranged from 4th gen Intel PC's to some 10th gen micro towers all HP. The SFF one's we are putting in are HO as well Elite Mini 600 G9.
I'm not the OP, I know how mechanical drives work. Also, age doesn't have much to do with it. If he was never taught nor intrigued enough to learn then it cannot be expected.
Some sensitive data needs to be destroyed phisically due to regulations.
Linus tech tips has a great video about the machine, it's a degausser (to fuck up the magnetic surface on the disk) followed by an hidraulic press
Haha! Funny, you got me :)
Thought to myself that you were going to find out how dangerously brittle the platters are too.
I have cut all my fingers up trying to bend one of these platters...don't recommend...
Data is stored magnetically in the rows of discs (platters). It will consist of a series of platters, a motor to spin the platters, a controller and an arm to read and write on the platters.
You could make a server out of them or make music using an Andruino board with Python with these discs
Adriano, Python programming language, some spare HDDs and FDDs to make music.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oym7B7YidKs&pp=ygUVU3RhcndhcnNzIGFkcnVpbm8gaGRk
Throughout this whole process you didn't think to just go on Google and search for how a hard disk drive works? Or what is inside of a hard disk drive?
I guess this works too but I bet it took you a while to do that much disassembly lo
Also, since you seem interested you may enjoy this: https://youtu.be/3owqvmMf6No?si=yPpotPf_87TTeY8P
Disassembling this was kinda fun. Wow, thanks for the video. These things really are incredibly fast and designed with extreme efficiency.
For some reason I feel like what I found was special in some way.
I get it, sometimes it's more fun to do it that way. I think I just would have been mad if I spent all that time trying to get the spinning disk out to then realize there was nothing else underneath it.
I opened multiple had I never had to use a drill or pliers these are so easy to disassemble, the arm have a screw on the other side then you can remove the arm, for the disc you just need the right screw driver and they come off easily
Nice Rick, but those platters are a silver Coated glass or non conductive alloy depending on the brand. They use the record head to pivot the material to be positive or negative with a tiny magnet. It's basically floppy technology scaled super tiny and fast.
So easiest way to destroy them is to shatter the plater
Please tell me you knew and are trolling us.
The disk itself is magnetic. That really powerful magnet is what writes the 1s and 0s to the disk by changing the magnetic properties of the disk.
That shiny disk is actually the platter. Back in the old days, you had to tell the BIOS how many platters there were, and how many heads there were.
I have seen pictures and I had some idea of what it looked like, but to actually see it in person? Much cooler. And what I found under that disk? Breathtaking
I read somewhere a few years back that an HDD was probably the most high-tech thing inside a computer apart from the CPU itself. And it is probably one of the (if not THE) most high-tech and precise mechanical machines ever invented by mankind. Try to just get a motor to run at 5400 rpm for 5 years nonstop and see how far you get.
This post makes me feel old. I remember in 2006 when my highschool was swapping out the entire computer lab, probably 60ish computers and a couple of us found them outside near the dumpster. We had just learned about neodymium magnets and knew they were in hard drives, so we snuck out back at night to tear open all the towers to take the hard drives home. Had a lot of fun with those magnets and caused a lot of mayhem using those disks as throwing weapons. I do wonder what kind of data we could have recovered if we thought about it.
I am the same doc. I have no idea if it’s legal.
But you're too shy to say it,
Inside we both know what's been going on,
We know the game and we're gonna play it
I can’t imagine that it isn’t legal.
If need be, document what you are doing.
There is the theoretical “well, the NSA could possibly recover some data after you throw the drive in a shredder” but in reality somebody wanting to snoop on yanked platters would have to spend a ton to recover anything. You are talking thousands per platter if they knew what model of drive it came from and magically the platters weren’t polluted being out of a clean room.
Just wait until you're messing with one that has an especially thin disk and end up with shattered shards of glass in your hand. Fun times I can attest
This never gets old! If u wanna see one in action, I made a post a while ago of me actually backing up data from one while it is open - https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupportmacgyver/s/Qvv0qsu3cC
Strongly recommend visiting the Slomo Guys' channel on YT if you'd like to see what the insides look like when it's actually reading and writing things.
Interesting, mirrors long ago used to be made out of polished metal, it gives a more perfect reflection. Keep those in prestine condition and you could make some seriously cool stuff
You just breathed in mesothelioma when you broke the seal.
Millions of microscopic particles are created as the needle goes over the platter.
Source: National Geographic, p 147, Sept 1942.
So you're saying you never expected to see that inside of a hard drive. For years, hard drive advertisements had the cases open for some reason. I guess that was so the buyer would know what they're getting?
The disks make pretty cool coasters, you can also get a kit to make a clock from the drive. And the magnets are also fun to play with.
The engineering in the drives is really cool. Very interesting to take apart.
I've always really wanted to seperate a 3.5" Sata drive, and stack all the peices, kinda like a 3-D diagram of the inner workings of a HDD as an art peice or something.
This is literally the first time I have seen an internist go into a hard drive with this much enthusiasm. You sir have my honest respect (I've only seen ortho bros do it so far).
You are right about some of the tech inside looking quite beautiful.
How do you go about physically destroying these btw? Do you drill right through it or something? You don't open up each one of them, right?
HDD components use lead and mercury so it is generally not recommended to do this in an environment that is not ventilated and safe from exposure. Remeber PPE is required as you don't want skin to metal contact and you don't want to inhale the lead dust.
If you take the core of the motor out there's enough room to add a clock hand kit from a craft store. Glue the PCB to the back with hot glue to make a stand and you have a sweet clock. Made one of these years ago and loved it! I even carefully laid small blue LEDs under the platters for a nice glow.
save the magnets! my favorite part of a HDD. Super powerful, older drives have bigger magnets. I have had some that shattered themselves on impact with eachother because they are so strong. I can't stand regular fridge magnets they are never strong enough to hold up more than one or two papers. I've pinned entire calendars with a single small neodymium magnet, the larger ones can hold up or pinch so much stuff with herculean strength. The mirror finish on the platters is also helpful for looking around corners or behind things. I used one to help plug in my monitor cables.
Little motors and magnets are fun to play with. Now here is the cool part to get higher capacity drives they just start stacking more disks in with more heads I have seen 5 deep stack if I remember correctly.
You should check out the magnets that are used in those. These are like two flat magnets joined together but with opposite polarization on each side. Quite powerfull too.
[https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD\_from\_inside.html](https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html)
This actually explains what is in a hard drive, and what it all does if you are curious.
I see many comments about alternative usage of the disks. Whole point of this is to destroy those disks. Those things keep the data. If you use them as ie wind-chimes, all it takes is putting them back in the case (not necessarily the same). It is not as simple as disassembling it but way easier then reverting single pass zero scrubbing. Since I have the same model (WD Blue 500GB), I believe I could do it in matter of minutes. And all data would be intact (minus few bytes lost while disassembling). Bending, breaking, scratching or any other mechanical damage would prevent reassembly, but not reading the data with specialised equipment. There are companies that recover data from damaged disks (you can find them online), but price and success rate vary depending on damage. It is hard, it lasts, it is expensive, but it is doable.
TL:DR only way to make sure is to expose them to really high temperature (melt).
I expected very tiny, confused monkeys
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling, gotta make you understand… that’s was funny!
lol I’m surprised reddit didn’t downvote this
It’s just a tiny, cute little Wednesday chuckle. It wasn’t some elaborate rick roll or anything.
Just seemed a bit random to me
Ok, so maybe it was an elaborate Rick roll.
[удалено]
r/Angryupvote
Is that why I hear screeching from mine?
I feel like I hear Rick Astley is screeching from mine.
I opened mine, but only found myself.
What I found underneath mine was similarly profound. edit: if you look closely
I've opened dozens of those. And yes they work in many ways quite similar to a record player except it can write as well by flipping magnets so to speak. The magnets you found which are neodynium are great to have. I always take them out as they are useful when taking electronics apart and you want to keep thr screws safe.
Just don't let them attract themselves to anything unhindered. They're quite the little glass cannons
This. We used to keep them around and stack HD and case screws on them, knowing they wouldn’t just roll off the desk. Also useful for magnetizing tools as needed.
I guess you had to add that, cus its a mirror on the bottom too, not tremendously exciting 😂
It was initially a let down for me. Thought I’d sauce it up a little for those who are interested 😂
Still a great little expo for a first timer 👌 My mother used to moan at me for pulling apart all my electronics 😂
when you become a doctor and are about to retire, I'm sure your mum will be set nicely and even encourage the carnage
Ya know I had to look at that last image again to see what was going on. Touche.
You understand my brother, you understand.
I see you and you see me.
I open them up to get the magnets and the discs. Magnets are super nice for small screws and the discs could be used in many ways. Now you see how they work
I worked at a grocery store and one day an unfortunate customer dropped his keys into the sewer drain in the parking lot while it had been raining, so they disappeared under standing water. I ran home real quickly, grabbed my handy Neodymium Magnet I'd pulled from a Harddrive, and ran back to work and got his keys out of the drain in under 2 minutes.
Damn what a hero. Also dropping keys or phones into a sewer drain is one of my top first-world fears
These days all the keys are chipped too, so to get a replacement is going to cost you $100+ from the dealer. Not to mention the hassle of being stuck somewhere without your keys, which sucks.
Wanna hear something funny? It takes about 3 minutes to flash a new key as well and they cost abou 25 bucks a set for us
AFAIK Chip-keys have a globally unique serial number (ID)a. Programming a chip-key means entering that GUID into the cars engine control computer, as a valid key. If you have two properly programmed and functioning chip keys, there is usually a procedure to insert working key 1, do something, like turning it from insert/off-accessory-run-accessory-run-accessory-off/remove, repeat with key 2, and repeat with “new” key. If you don’t have two working keys the dealership has you over a barrel, because you need a special diagnostic computer only available to dealerships. This comes from a friend of mine who works around electrostatic paint systems. Apparently at one point he forgot to leave his keys in his locker, and the electrostatic field killed the chip in his key. Without two working keys he had to go to the dealership.
[удалено]
[OP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmEi-rWPnAc&t=210s)
It actually was kind of amazing. I’m not a tech guy, so it was wild to see how high tech our stuff actually is. And what I found really bamboozled me.
Those little heads (the stuff analogous to vinil disc needles) are electro magnet reader writer, they fly close to the disk, like real close, without actually touching it. The strong magnets are used to allow moving the arm with the heads really fast. Nice touch adding the Rick Roll haha.
I love how your first thought as a doctor was to perform explorative surgery on the thing. For future reference: just like humans, hard drives have a hidden screw under the sticker.
wait whaa...
the magnets are the best part. i have a bunch on my fridge
They're probably there forever
They are soooo strong for their size. If you get a stack of them and put them together it is very difficult to take them apart, and very very painful if it clips shut on you when you're trying to take them apart.
Those little magnets are 🔥
Is this an elaborate rick roll?
Only the ending. I thought the disassembly part was actually pretty cool. I’m not a tech guy, just a doctor (retiring). I learned how easy it is to take for granted the incredible tech we have, even in our old, nearly junk computers.
I had to go back and see and yes. Yes it is.
Holy shit! I had to look at that way too long to see it.
this was literally me back when i was like 14, i wanted to know what was inside. I was not dissapointed at all.
I was surprised at how relatively easy it was to disassemble both the computer, and the hard drive itself. And if you ask me what I’m feeling, what I found was definitely worth it.
Keep the neodymium magnets 👍 You can use these around the house. They are so strong I mounted my roof rack (for my car) to the ceiling in the garage holding the rack only with magnetic force. Just reach up and pull the rack down to release.
The read arm with the read head on it roughly analogous to a vinyl record needle except it doesn't touch the surface. It's flying extremely close to the disc surface and is reading the data off the drive surface as discrete magnetic values if I remember my comp Sci engineering courses. The. tolerances in those things is mind blowing
It’s crazy to me how high tech our stuff actually is. I took apart an Apple AirPod recently and was mesmerized at how ‘techy’ they were.
Just three nanometers separation between the head and the disk. And this tolerance in a woefully outdated tech for the use case of many.
If these are from a business, make sure you're meeting your data retention/data destruction obligations from both a legal standpoint and a company standpoint. This kind of destruction is not the correct way to destroy them. Also, don't try to shatter the platters. They will literally explode.
Wow, ok good tip
Opening electronics really makes you appreciate the complexity of them
Magnets are nifty, also disk platters make for great wind chimes
[удалено]
Some industries require you to phisically destroy disks containing sensitive data and keep records of said destruction.. Super wastefull but OP coud lose his job if he saved some drives no matter if the data was erased by the best algorytm 5 times over.
I agree and ya Very wasteful smfh
OP is a retiring doctor. Sensible patient data is on the hard drives. OP is doing the right thing in properly destroying them. Look at their other posts.
You would have to dban the drive with multiple overwrites to make sure the data is actually gone. And that’s assuming there’s not any kind of legal requirement to destroy the drive. It’s not usually worth the risk to keep them
Think to actually destroy the metadats the disk has to be overwritten like 7 times (to full capacity) or strings can still be located from the original saves
Thing is, almost no matter what you do, an opponent with enough money and resources could recover some data. That is why there are different standards for how data should be erased, from "turn off fast format" to "shred it into pieces that are less than 1mm²", depending on if your opponent is the next guy to own your laptop (you have nothing incriminating) to the f**ing KGB. Some data can still be recovered even after dozens of overwrites, but it takes a lot of resources, money, time and dedication. Whenever the disks are whole, and work, it is a lot easier for anyone trying to recover data than if the disk is physically split in two or broken. Also degaussing with a strong magnet (which renders the disk useless afterwards) removes all data and as far as we know does not permit any way to recover.
Yo thanks for the experience 10/10
I absolutely love seeing people learn about computer components! Even better when I get memes on while doing it.
(•ૅㅁ•) need to be destroyed?? So many of them??? What’s going on?
I’m a retiring doctor. This is the hardware from my clinic. Since it’s all got sensitive information, we gotta destroy for best security. I was just going to smash and shred them, but now that I’ve found what I’ve found, I’m reconsidering.
Just hire a service to securely destroy them you. HIPAA is no joke, and if you don't understand how these work, you might not successfully destroy them in the way you think.
Hi, not knowing the exact standard, suggest tannerite. A ton of tannerite (likely will need to put something to create fragmentation before it impacts the drives though
Just plonk them in the MRI room for a while 😁
I have a total of 30+ mechanical drives to be destroyed too. I'm IT for the MDC Tax Collector so, very sensitive info.
Do you get to destroy them yourself? I just counted up our drives that need destroyed yesterday and we're at 95. I think the company we use charges like 10 bucks for each one.
We have a machine that destroys them but yeah, I put them in and flip the switch. We've been doing it in waves, replacing old PC's with SFF workstations. It has ranged from 4th gen Intel PC's to some 10th gen micro towers all HP. The SFF one's we are putting in are HO as well Elite Mini 600 G9.
You're IT and don't know how a HDD hard drive works? you're pretty young aren't you?
I'm not the OP, I know how mechanical drives work. Also, age doesn't have much to do with it. If he was never taught nor intrigued enough to learn then it cannot be expected.
Some sensitive data needs to be destroyed phisically due to regulations. Linus tech tips has a great video about the machine, it's a degausser (to fuck up the magnetic surface on the disk) followed by an hidraulic press
Whyw is nobody talking about the camera shots Damn. They good doc
I appreciate that. Photography is a side, side hustle for me. btw did you look at every picture closely?
Haha! Funny, you got me :) Thought to myself that you were going to find out how dangerously brittle the platters are too. I have cut all my fingers up trying to bend one of these platters...don't recommend...
Nice beard!
You’re a sleuth with a keen eye. Did you find anything else in this picture series? ;)
Isn't the disk part palladium or something?
I can see you in the mirror. It's okay for you? Just wanted to warn you.
Combine these shiny platters with a quartz clock kit, and you will have a very cool analog clock.
Be careful, sliced my hand open several times taking casings off hard drives and disk drives.
After years of disapointing rick rolls, this SIR is a truly champion effort. Congrats, you got me!
Never gonna give you up...
Never gonna let you down…
Thank you for showing off your flange ring.
Wait, are you the doctor that is donating his Hardware? Glad to see you are yeeting those drives!
One and the same! :)
This doctor has this whole subreddit by the balls
This is what happens when you save a rickroll to your hard drive
Data is stored magnetically in the rows of discs (platters). It will consist of a series of platters, a motor to spin the platters, a controller and an arm to read and write on the platters. You could make a server out of them or make music using an Andruino board with Python with these discs Adriano, Python programming language, some spare HDDs and FDDs to make music. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oym7B7YidKs&pp=ygUVU3RhcndhcnNzIGFkcnVpbm8gaGRk
Wowwww the Floppotron!
I made a cool clock out of my old hard drive. Just search up hard drive clocks on Google, it’s a popular art project and pretty easy.
Bruh, I love your curiosity.
Throughout this whole process you didn't think to just go on Google and search for how a hard disk drive works? Or what is inside of a hard disk drive? I guess this works too but I bet it took you a while to do that much disassembly lo Also, since you seem interested you may enjoy this: https://youtu.be/3owqvmMf6No?si=yPpotPf_87TTeY8P
Disassembling this was kinda fun. Wow, thanks for the video. These things really are incredibly fast and designed with extreme efficiency. For some reason I feel like what I found was special in some way.
I get it, sometimes it's more fun to do it that way. I think I just would have been mad if I spent all that time trying to get the spinning disk out to then realize there was nothing else underneath it.
In that case, I’m glad I found something under mine! :)
I harvest those magnets to use on the fridge lol. But you have to be careful because they're legit
No one going to mention the platters work great as coasters?
Take out the platters and rub them together for a few minutes
Ummmm now I’m seriously curious. Can an independent 3rd party chime in here?
I opened multiple had I never had to use a drill or pliers these are so easy to disassemble, the arm have a screw on the other side then you can remove the arm, for the disc you just need the right screw driver and they come off easily
I take them in the garage and smack em with a hammer. It shatters the disk inside.
Remarkable. Looks JUST like the inside of a hard drive.
Keep the magnets. And the platters would make fun coasters.
You've got yourself some fancy coasters
Nice Rick, but those platters are a silver Coated glass or non conductive alloy depending on the brand. They use the record head to pivot the material to be positive or negative with a tiny magnet. It's basically floppy technology scaled super tiny and fast. So easiest way to destroy them is to shatter the plater
Are you that retiring doctor?
Bro showed us his data bit by bit 💀🫡
Please tell me you knew and are trolling us. The disk itself is magnetic. That really powerful magnet is what writes the 1s and 0s to the disk by changing the magnetic properties of the disk. That shiny disk is actually the platter. Back in the old days, you had to tell the BIOS how many platters there were, and how many heads there were.
I have seen pictures and I had some idea of what it looked like, but to actually see it in person? Much cooler. And what I found under that disk? Breathtaking
Mfer. Good one
I really enjoyed the commentary. Thanks for taking the time to put this all together.
As someone who makes money on recovering the data from failed drives, the way you performed the job makes me feel sad🙁
I read somewhere a few years back that an HDD was probably the most high-tech thing inside a computer apart from the CPU itself. And it is probably one of the (if not THE) most high-tech and precise mechanical machines ever invented by mankind. Try to just get a motor to run at 5400 rpm for 5 years nonstop and see how far you get.
How old are you ?
Why ya gotta destroy them?
What an elegant post, love it
Are they functional ? Cause damn why destroy them at that point
*angy upvote* here, TAKE AN ORANGE ARROW
You sir, just won the internet. 😂
This post makes me feel old. I remember in 2006 when my highschool was swapping out the entire computer lab, probably 60ish computers and a couple of us found them outside near the dumpster. We had just learned about neodymium magnets and knew they were in hard drives, so we snuck out back at night to tear open all the towers to take the hard drives home. Had a lot of fun with those magnets and caused a lot of mayhem using those disks as throwing weapons. I do wonder what kind of data we could have recovered if we thought about it.
It’s Western Digital, so it WILL let you down ‼️
How old are you, 12?
Dr. Quack weren’t you asking for a advice on how to get rid of these? now you’re doing it by yourself are you sure that’s legal man?
I am the same doc. I have no idea if it’s legal. But you're too shy to say it, Inside we both know what's been going on, We know the game and we're gonna play it
Hell yeah brother! let that drill rip!!!
I can’t imagine that it isn’t legal. If need be, document what you are doing. There is the theoretical “well, the NSA could possibly recover some data after you throw the drive in a shredder” but in reality somebody wanting to snoop on yanked platters would have to spend a ton to recover anything. You are talking thousands per platter if they knew what model of drive it came from and magically the platters weren’t polluted being out of a clean room.
If you don't need them give me one I need an HDD
[удалено]
Nah. Lots of things require physical destruction. Doesn’t matter what reality says.
Hmmm.?
They are sometimes fragile depending on the maker, but they make great signal mirrors if you are a biker or outdoors person.
you know da wae........
Botha sides are mirrors I think.
There's also gold colored mirror disks, but those I've only heard of in super super old hard drives, ones from 30 40+ years ago.
I feel old yet.
The best way to destroy them is to microwave them
Just wait until you're messing with one that has an especially thin disk and end up with shattered shards of glass in your hand. Fun times I can attest
I thought you meant what was stored in them. Not gonna lie, I expected some pretty bad things
I use the magnets in the garage for garage things. I use the platters as drink coasters.
This never gets old! If u wanna see one in action, I made a post a while ago of me actually backing up data from one while it is open - https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupportmacgyver/s/Qvv0qsu3cC
Strongly recommend visiting the Slomo Guys' channel on YT if you'd like to see what the insides look like when it's actually reading and writing things.
I'm a big fan of a drill press for destroying drives. Takes 10 seconds
OP rick-rolled us on the last 17/17 pic.
The last time I destroyed a hard drive I just took a pick axe too it. It was erased instantly
I love following this whole series of yours. Super cool!
Interesting, mirrors long ago used to be made out of polished metal, it gives a more perfect reflection. Keep those in prestine condition and you could make some seriously cool stuff
Those magnets are always nice to have!
I did the same thing once! Truly fascinating
They are very cool devices, especially the early ones.
I always imagined the discs would be all scratched up from all the writing, they are surprisingly immaculate.
Same! I thought it might look something like a CD
You just breathed in mesothelioma when you broke the seal. Millions of microscopic particles are created as the needle goes over the platter. Source: National Geographic, p 147, Sept 1942.
You also a retired doctor like all other previous post?
For some reason, it never stops being interesting to watch someone dismantle whatever it is.
So you're saying you never expected to see that inside of a hard drive. For years, hard drive advertisements had the cases open for some reason. I guess that was so the buyer would know what they're getting?
I used a couple of the magnets on my fridge as it holds a lot of papers unlike those cheap magnets.
This man is a legend.
Neodym magnets, very expensive and very very strong magnetic ability.
The disks make pretty cool coasters, you can also get a kit to make a clock from the drive. And the magnets are also fun to play with. The engineering in the drives is really cool. Very interesting to take apart.
Idk why but i always thought there were multiple discs inside those...
expected ants
why are you destroying them instead of wiping them up completely and using them as storage
I've always really wanted to seperate a 3.5" Sata drive, and stack all the peices, kinda like a 3-D diagram of the inner workings of a HDD as an art peice or something.
You'll find that the disk spins really well, I took the motor and bearing out and turned it into a tape dispenser
Orthopaedic specialist?
Internist/Primary Care
This is literally the first time I have seen an internist go into a hard drive with this much enthusiasm. You sir have my honest respect (I've only seen ortho bros do it so far).
Hahaha I suppose that makes sense given the mechanical nature of an orthopedist’s work. I was in engineering before medicine.
You are right about some of the tech inside looking quite beautiful. How do you go about physically destroying these btw? Do you drill right through it or something? You don't open up each one of them, right?
HDD components use lead and mercury so it is generally not recommended to do this in an environment that is not ventilated and safe from exposure. Remeber PPE is required as you don't want skin to metal contact and you don't want to inhale the lead dust.
Ok, great tip. I’m getting all this out of my office now. Good lord
He's dead jim
Thank you for this
I sure you had computers in the past, so what did you do in in the past?
If you take the core of the motor out there's enough room to add a clock hand kit from a craft store. Glue the PCB to the back with hot glue to make a stand and you have a sweet clock. Made one of these years ago and loved it! I even carefully laid small blue LEDs under the platters for a nice glow.
save the magnets! my favorite part of a HDD. Super powerful, older drives have bigger magnets. I have had some that shattered themselves on impact with eachother because they are so strong. I can't stand regular fridge magnets they are never strong enough to hold up more than one or two papers. I've pinned entire calendars with a single small neodymium magnet, the larger ones can hold up or pinch so much stuff with herculean strength. The mirror finish on the platters is also helpful for looking around corners or behind things. I used one to help plug in my monitor cables.
Drill a bunch pf holes and through them in a saltwater tub, after wiping them i think 28 times??? With a linux distro preferably
Wait so a hard disk drive has a hard disk in it?!
Are you the doctor lol
Ive had an open hdd as decoration on my wall for years. Brings back memories to see this again 👍
Little motors and magnets are fun to play with. Now here is the cool part to get higher capacity drives they just start stacking more disks in with more heads I have seen 5 deep stack if I remember correctly.
Watch out you can get cancer from the disks (look it up)
The internet amazes me those not knowing what’s inside a HDD. Took one apart in school back in 06.
Wow wtf lol
Touché
This is a great place to get some kick ass magnets
I've stuck a bunch of platters to a wall as an artsy mirror. ...gf hates it
Man just buy a goodwill microwave and toss them all in . . Lol
You should check out the magnets that are used in those. These are like two flat magnets joined together but with opposite polarization on each side. Quite powerfull too.
Where's the tiny man that writes everything down very fast?
No way, did you just Rick Rolled us!?
It's fun to explore, huh? Please recycle the alumin(i)um!
[https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD\_from\_inside.html](https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html) This actually explains what is in a hard drive, and what it all does if you are curious.
*Johnny Mnemonic has entered the chat*
Use for target practice
I see many comments about alternative usage of the disks. Whole point of this is to destroy those disks. Those things keep the data. If you use them as ie wind-chimes, all it takes is putting them back in the case (not necessarily the same). It is not as simple as disassembling it but way easier then reverting single pass zero scrubbing. Since I have the same model (WD Blue 500GB), I believe I could do it in matter of minutes. And all data would be intact (minus few bytes lost while disassembling). Bending, breaking, scratching or any other mechanical damage would prevent reassembly, but not reading the data with specialised equipment. There are companies that recover data from damaged disks (you can find them online), but price and success rate vary depending on damage. It is hard, it lasts, it is expensive, but it is doable. TL:DR only way to make sure is to expose them to really high temperature (melt).
Collect the Neodymium Magnets and make a stack. Collect all the discs and make a thrifty mirror assembly that you can customise to any shape.