In my year-end tidying, I've been sorting out my various hard disk stockpile accumulated over the last couple decades. They went into separate boxes: IDE/PATA, SATA, SAS, and DEAD. This afternoon, I got around to taking apart the DEAD ones, partly for data security, partly for magnets and partly for curiosity and maybe harvesting precision bearings or motors.
I had a stack of maybe 15-18 hard disks in the DEAD pile, mostly SATA, but a few IDE/PATA. Of those, about half had significant disk platter damage. I took some photos, which I have shared in the album linked here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1MGJqAm7TdgixP5F6 I didn't bother to photograph the pristine-looking platters, so these are just the ones that took some damage. Some damage more dramatic than others. One side of a damaged platter was pretty much intact, so that's the only clean one you'll see in this batch. I handled them, and even washed/dried them off (with a lint-generating towel) so don't mind the specs. The disks look yellow due to the incandescent bulbs over the dining room table where I took most of these. The last couple pics are with some magnification, ether 10x or 30x, under my stereo dissecting microscope. One of those shows a particularly egregious gouge. "I'm sure it will buff right out" Be careful out there, and remember your backups! -- Russell Senior [email protected]
