Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Hard Drive Window

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-you-shouldn't dept.

Xx Shinwa xX writes "This guy has done what was thought to be impossible: he has opened his hard drive and installed a clear acrylic window. And it still works. I would love to try this, if I had the guts."

4 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Vacuum? by RedACE7500 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought the inside of a hard drive was a vacuum.. am I wrong?

  2. Cool Yes, Difficult Yes, Impossible No. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wouldn't do it in a dusty basement but if you are in a relatively clean area, and don't leave the drive out facing the elements (The guy who did it put his drive in a zip lock bag.) A clean room would be preferred but just a "clean" room with little dust should work for most cases. Companies that do this a lot (Opening Harddrives/creating harddrives) will use a clean room because have say 10% failure due to dust but for a modder who is using an old drive, it would a 10% chance of dust is pretty good. You could probably make your own clean room with some clear plastic, DuctTape, Rubber Gloves, and coat hangers, Some felt and a vacuum cleaner. Hmm I may have a new SlashDot article for the future.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. They need the air by mary_will_grow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Disk drive heads ride on a blanket of air over the media. With a vacuum, they wouldn't have this air and they'd ruin the media. Thats why they have filtered vent holes.

    Some drives even control the ability of the heads to move with a wind-driven interlock mechanism (sort of like the governor on a lawnmower engine), forcing the drives to stay in the proper area when the drive isn't spinning.

    --
    Why stick up for big business?
  4. Digg vs Dot by dark-br · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Digg vs Dot is a simple website that was put together to highlight the act of crossposting articles among two very popular sites, digg.com and Slashdot.org.

    Points are scored in the following manner:

    +3 for first post
    +1 for ties (within 50 min)
    -1 ripping off the title & url.

    Have a look at the scores :)