Guide Windowed HDD, that should keep all data intack!!!!

man dudes must be crazy to do this

this is the one thing id never consider doing

 

I did this to and old 2GB a couple of years ago, did it for looks really so didnt bother with doing the whole running a shower thing but did use an antistatic bag. Found that it worked fine afterwards too and was still working fine (well, as fine as a old 2GB can work) a few months ago when i threw it out...

I wouldn't do it to a modern HDD that I needed or one that has important data one it as there is always the risk that it will go wrong but then as long as you take precautions and take your time its no more risky than watercooling or anything else really.

 

i so would've taken that off've your hands for you

 

A friend of mine tried this and it didn't work out. Personally, it's a little more than I would try, but if you get one that works afterwards, then it can look very impressive. Wonder if they could start doing it as standard .

 

Anything is possible if you have the proper tools and knowledge.

When trying to window a hard drive, the two prime killers are static electricty and any particulate matter landing on the platter.

Now, you could work on a metal surface (such as a baking sheet) thats earth grounded while you are wearing a ground wrist strap.

About the dust, the only idea I have is to use a particulate dusk mask to create air flow over the hard drive that is 99% particulate matter free.

How you'd pull that off,,.. emm I'm too lazy to think about that now.

 

mm a windowed hard disk. now theres an idea..

"walks off to experiment with an old driv" will post results soon

 

but if your like me... i have my drives safley tucked in a rack at the bottom of my V1100 so.. a window would never show

[btw 1st post ^^ yay!]

 

Actually, I found a really good way to give you more time with the hard drive exposed if you need it. I found out that when you take a shower, the steam will make all the dust and air particles fall to the floor.
So if you do this in the bathroom, you can just turn on the shower and make it a little steamy. Not too steamy, or you'll risk moisture on your hard drive. But it will greatly reduce the risk of damaging it.

 

that's weird... i have a quantum 30, and a maxtor 30. the maxtor 30 died WAY before the quantum, which silently serves to this day...

 

Anyone need old HDD

I never knew that old small HDD were in such high modding demand. I have a collection of drives under 6 Gb - i think i have 8-10 of them, just sitting, waiting for the day i add them to a linux computer. If anyone wants one for 5 USD plus 5 shipping, i can send them out. Email me @ timothykamp@yahoo.com

 

fix your email address to timothykamp (at) yahoo.com or thine inbox shalt be filled with spam

 

well if you took a static proof bag for computer parts and then wraped the hd in it and then used a vacumeseal bag the chance of damage would be very unlikely

Also if you were to use a 25g+ hard drive you could do it just make it like a window in your house woth a cross leading to the spindle screw

 

30 GB drive w/screw in middle spindle. Worked great for a few months then just made a bunch of noise. (Windows wouldn't recognize it, and the few times it did it would hang while writing data.)

I used the shower method, but stuck with a plastic bag... now I'm thinking newspaper-lined plastic container/box might work better.

 

I've got 2 10 gb hdd's I may attempt this one (I yank them from xbox's i mod, so i just keep getting more )

 

I've windowed a 80GB western digital IDE and it works fine!

Been working for about 5 months now, no problems

 

send a few my way!

 

I guess this is a silly question as it sound almost rediculous as I'm about to type it, but couldn't you build your own "clean room" with a plexi box? Put some elbow length diswashing gloves in there like in the movies... a HEPA filter on the inlet and outlet, and a big 120mm fan on the inlet side only, then scrub the thing with acetone, alcohol, or whatever won't eat the plexi. It's OK if it's flamable, because the fan is only on the INLET side... just duct the exhaust side so it's not recirculating back to the fan or anything else that could ignite it. Use a grounding strap from the outside of the box to the ground of an electrical outlet you're working near to keep the static off the box. Then put all your tools (cleaned) your newly cut plexi (requires some superfly meausurements to get it cut right) and the disk drive all in the box, and close it up and seal it. Run the fans through the HEPA filter for about 30 minutes before doing anything, then wipe all your tools and the drive down with acetone (put the acetone in the cleanroom too) then begin extraction. With carefull planning I really think that it would improve your chances of success. This is of course assuming that you could measure and cut your window and get everything ready before disasembling the drive. I suppose if you REALLY had to do it up right, you could build an airlock in it, but that would be a bit complex but it might just put you far enough into the green to mod some big drives... I've got a pair of IBM 60gb drives that I'm currently using. I might try this on them after I build a new rig.

-TZ

 

i was thinking something like that

 

Sorry to resurrect a somewhat older thread... but I can't stop thinking about this and I need someone to put my mind to rest about it. Here's the idea:

I'm under the disticnt impression that when two drives are arranged in a stripe zero array, that the heads move in unison when writing large files (small ones only get written to one drive right?).

SOOOOO... if you windowed 2 drives, and mounted them side by side with their windows being visable through the case side window... then you could actually see the heads moving in tandem??? is this right?

Also, I'm wondering some other stuff: Could it be possible to add LEDs INSIDE the cover, but not visible directly... They would be wired up independant of the actual disk, but would be fed a signal from the Mainboard's HDD activity pins... so the INSIDES of the drives would light up when in use?

What do you guys think?

BTW, I've got a Maxtor 25GB that I'm gonna hack up next week to test my theory... BLUE LEDs BABY!!!!!

-TZ (crazy american)

 

1st off: heads may not move in tandem. Would be cool if they did

2nd: just wire the led to pin 39 of the IDE cable, and you now have independant in drive activity lights.