Hard Drive Disassembly???

Hello, my hard drive has been making a clicking noise and I want to take it apart to check it out. I took all the screws out but the back panel still wouldn't come off.
Is there something else I need to do.
I am not worried about losing the data on there or if the hard drive gets even more broken. I was just going to throw it away but figured I might as well take a look at it.

It is a western digital 160gb internal drive.

Thanks

 

Hard drives are vacuum sealed. If you break that seal, the drive is toast. Its not something you could repair on your own.

 

Yes, Adrynalyne is right, even you don't damage the drive you wouldn't be able to do anything to remedy the problem either. At the very least you would void the warranty, speaking of warranty this is a 160GB drive so it can't be that old, any chance of getting a free replacement? WD should cover replacement free of charge for at least a year I believe.

 

sorry, the drive is a 60 gig. I know the warranty doesn't last 4 years hehe, but wouldn't that be nice. . .

 

What kind of clicking noise is it? I can't remember what drives it was but some of them makes a loud clicking sound once a day when they erase cache memory. I have that sound and I'm using WD, Samsung and Maxtor, can't really tell which one it is though. If it's not repeating itself very often it might just be that.

 

You could also try running WDCLEAR or some other low-level formating utility from a floppy or CD to do a low-level format which inadvertently compresses the plates a bit more together during the format process which might help since the drive is not that new...

 

Hard drives are not vacuum sealed. You can find a little "breather" hole on the top cover. But you are correct about it ruining the drive if you take the cover off. the breather holes always have filter material behind them.

Most likely you will find a label on the top with a screw under it. Feel around the label with your finger until you feel an indent under it. That will be the hidden screw.

 

Vacuum or no vacuum, trying to find an error with a drive would be as trying to find a needle in the pacifics... unless you're working at a factory that makes harddrives you have no chance of finding the problem, even less fix it. They don't just use a set of pliers and screwdrivers when they assemble these drives, these fine mechanics are impossible and utterly useless to try and fix yourself.

 

Agreed, but this person also posted on another forum saying he knew it would destroy the drive and didn't care. I think he just wants to see what's inside.

 

if there was any air going into the casing for the platters the drive would be done for. ANY dust gets in there and you have major problems...

[edit] let me revise this. There is already air in the casing but it's not contaminated. If any "house" air gets in there, it's over.

 

I agree.

 

Two things to try before you go messing it up...

1. Bang the corner of it on a hard sureface a few times (not too hard, obviously).


2. Put it in the freezer for a few hours.

Seriously. The scond one sounds silly but was told to me by an old tech who swore by it.


Steve

 

No it's not vacuum sealed. You don't have to beleive me, just look at a hard drive and you will see for yourself. As for dust, there is a small piece of filter material over the hole. If you feel like getting really creative, find an old drive and dis-assemble it. you will clearly see the hole and the filter.

Actually, the drive manucatures rely on this. The heads don't touch the patters, they ride on a thin cushion of air. This would be impossible if it were in a vacumm.

Do a Google search for how hard drives work. It will show you what I'm talking about. Howstuffworks.com has a good picture of the filter and an explanation - http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk5.htm

 

lol

 

here have fun i take broken stuff apart all the time its something to do and you learn .........http://home.insightbb.com/~stephenwmoore/Speakers/Hard_Drive_Speaker.htm

http://www.kixor.net/~descender/screme/computer/hard_drive.html

 

If there was air in the drive it would be damn so sensitive to vibrations... the arms would scratch the plates like that. Because there's vacuum you get somewhat resistance to this. That's just one thing.

 

It absolutly amazes me that even after people are shown cold hard proof, they still contunue to believe their own speculations are fact.

I've given you a website that shows what I am talking about. You folks can continue to believe what you want.

 

READ MY EDIT PLEASE..( which was posted before your post) .. it clearly states that if any dust gets in there ..etc etc.. so by him disassembling the drive.. he's effectively terminated it.

 

I'm not saying your webpage is wrong, just that it's strange. There are so many things talking against you I'm just not ready to through myself at your word. Nothing wrong with being suspicious. I'm not trying to take you down or anything, relax

 

no, there is a filter on there.. but what he's not understanding is the premise of the post is disassembly of the drive which , by definition, ignores the fact that there's a filter on the drive. I scratched my head for a second when I remembered that the head glides on air and the light went on again, and thus the editing of my post.

 

Ok, I am getting a bit passionate about this, I'll calm down. There isn't really anything stange about it though. the air is not rushing through the hole, it's just there to equalize the pressure as the hard drive heats up and cools down. The filter material is so fine that it will filter out anything that is large enough to damage the platters or the heads. this isn't the only site eithr, just do a Google for how hard drives work and you will get many sites with good info on the subject.

I absolutly agree with you. However, this person posted on another site saying he knew the consiquenses of opening the drive. I think he just wanted to see how the drive worked, not repair it.

 

Alright, well it seems I have to accept the fact there is a darn filter there hehe

But yeah, you're right. it doesn't really matter.

 

Then we all agree! Thus ended the discussion

 

well, when you see some one say "Hard drive disassembly".. the first reaction is NOOO!!!! .. I actually skimmed it and caught the tension and didn't read the initial post completely. My fault.

He apparently doesn't care if the drive gets hosed.. so be it..

 

On a lighter note, just for giggles we once took an old drive and loaded an OS and a few programs such as Office and then removed the cover and ran it all day just to see how long it would last. It preformed just fine the first day. We left it running overnight but when we came in the next day the OS BSOD'd. We did get it running again for a while but obvioulsy it didn't last long.

 

Well, there IS a certain kind of modification that can be made, making a window to see into the hard drive. It is a ***VERY*** difficult modification to do, but, it has been done before. It IS possible to do, though very risky and very difficult.
here is a link:

http://www.creativemods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=39

why do I bring this up?
think about it...
if you really don't care about the hard drive, and you have the ability to work with things like this, you could, if you pull it off successfully, be known as the greatest hardware mod user in your neighboorhood.

 

Yeah, I saw on Screen Savers the modding guy did something like that. He put a clear plate on his hard drive so you could see how it worked. He's a professional and said he screwed up 2 drives trying the mod. And who knows how long the third one actually lasted. Maybe not long...

 

LMFAO

Do it again...do it again!!!!

ROTF

 

In defense of myself, I wasn't entirely wrong.

http://www.pctechguide.com/04disks_Construction.htm