[Ham-Computers] Repairing hard drives

[Philip Atchley]

Hi,

My brother sent me the following instructions and, since defunct hard drives 
are easy to find and cheap to buy (sometimes free)  I thought that I'd share 
them with you <grin>.

There have been several instances reported lately of hard drive crashes, so
I did some research and found the following information on fixing it
yourself...enjoy

It's really not too difficult fixing your own hard drive, if the problem is
a head crash, or the infamous Seagate "stiction" problem, if you know what
to do. You will require #4/0 steel wool, paint thinners, WD-40, a few hand
tools, and about 45 minutes.

First, you need a clean room, so make sure the garage door is closed before
you begin. Move those old lawnmower parts off the bench. Disassemble the
sealed unit and carefully wash all parts with paint thinners. Bend the
read/write heads out of the way, and then disassemble the platter stack.

VERY CAREFULLY buff the platter surfaces with the #4/0 steel wool. This will
remove any existing data, level out any surface defects, and help to
redistribute the magnetic media and fill in those pesky "bad sectors" that
most drives have.

Reassemble the platter stack, and using a .015" feeler gauge, bend the
read/write heads back to the platter surface, using the feeler gauge to set
the gap. This is slightly higher gap than the factory uses, but it reduces
the chance of head collisions with any debris you neglected to remove.

Give the heads and platters a good shot of WD-40 and reassemble the unit. If
your drive has a filter, replace it with a clean section of gauze pad.

All that's left is to low level and DOS format the drive, and you're back in
business. I haven't tried this myself, but my friend's wife's
sister-in-law's husband knows a technician that does it all the time.

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
DX begins at the noise floor!

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