Storage Solutions How to dispose off really old semi working / non working HDD ?

J

joy.das.jd

Adept
As the title says, how does one dispose off non working HDD / or intermittently working HDD ? There is no critical data on any of the drives but who knows there might be something or the other. What's the most environmentally friendly way to dispose them off? Don't want to throw it with the regular trash. Some are even IDE drives and I don't even have any methods to check if they are working or not.
 
I disassemble them and sell for scrap. Lately the scrap dealers try to act smart and don't give more than 10 rupees for the aluminium case so i used it as a heat sink or stand. Have 2-3 such aluminium cases. I Kept the neodymium magnets. Scrap dealers want those magnets but don't want to pay anything for it. The disks have a coating of some rare metal (palladium?) but i just throw it in other scrap parts for selling to junk man.
 
joy.das.jd said:
As the title says, how does one dispose off non working HDD / or intermittently working HDD ? There is no critical data on any of the drives but who knows there might be something or the other. What's the most environmentally friendly way to dispose them off? Don't want to throw it with the regular trash. Some are even IDE drives and I don't even have any methods to check if they are working or not.
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Give it to me! I will take really good care of them..
 
Do you also have this HDD? I have some unbacked-up data on it; whenever I plug it in, it makes loud clicking noises and isn't readable. If you have one and are willing to give it away, I would try and see if swapping its motherboard or platter could make it work!

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abhishekr700 said:
Aren't clicking noises directly related to physical problems like maybe a damaged head / motor ?
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Yes, and this is where platter swapping comes in. After diagnosis, if you're certain that the problem isn't related to the board, you can perform platter swapping, which requires an exact similar drive. But it's much easier said than done.
 
retrophiliac said:
Do you also have this HDD? I have some unbacked-up data on it; whenever I plug it in, it makes loud clicking noises and isn't readable. If you have one and are willing to give it away, I would try and see if swapping its motherboard or platter could make it work!

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Aren't clicking noises directly related to physical problems like maybe a damaged head / motor ?

retrophiliac said:
Yes, and this is where platter swapping comes in. After diagnosis, if you're certain that the problem isn't related to the board, you can perform platter swapping, which requires an exact similar drive. But it's much easier said than done.
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I think I read somewhere above that you were gonna replace the PCB. But platter swapping :O
Didn't even know that's a thing, please record a video when you do that :)
 
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retrophiliac said:
Yes, and this is where platter swapping comes in. After diagnosis, if you're certain that the problem isn't related to the board, you can perform platter swapping, which requires an exact similar drive. But it's much easier said than done.
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Platter swapping cannot be done at home but only possible in a very extremely controlled environment with either prof. data recovery centers or with the brands themselves. Once you dismantle the hdd its all gone! Nor the platters can be reused on other hdds even after taking it to such controlled centers nor it can be put back as our air is full of dust particles everywhere and platters has to be 101% dust-free. In fact, the entire inside of hdd is to be dust-free for the hdd to be operational.
 
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nRiTeCh said:
Platter swapping cannot be done at home but only possible in a very extremely controlled environment with either prof. data recovery centers or with the brands themselves. Once you dismantle the hdd its all gone! Nor the platters can be reused on other hdds even after taking it to such controlled centers nor it can be put back as our air is full of dust particle everywhere and platters has to be 101% dust free in fact the entire inside of hdd is to be dust-free for the hdd to be operational.
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Oh yes I forgot, the average distance between platter and read head is around 14 nanometres.
So you can imagine what will happen if dust particles generally more than 100nm are floating inside. Thank you @nRiTeCh for the insight !
 
nRiTeCh said:
Platter swapping cannot be done at home but only possible in a very extremely controlled environment with either prof. data recovery centers or with the brands themselves. Once you dismantle the hdd its all gone! Nor the platters can be reused on other hdds even after taking it to such controlled centers nor it can be put back as our air is full of dust particle everywhere and platters has to be 101% dust free in fact the entire inside of hdd is to be dust-free for the hdd to be operational.
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I was tempted to do it after watching a lot of YouTube videos:sweatsmile:. If I recall correctly, I saw one of them doing it under the kitchen vent, another inside a plastic bag, and so on.

Do you know of a place where I can get it done cheaper? I've heard data recovery charges are way too high.
 
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