[Ham-Computers] Repairing hard drives

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Careful there Frank! I have one over there in my faithful 133 MHZ machine 
that is still performing its duties without fail for over twenty-six 
thousand hours. It has a 3.5 1.44 Meg, and a pair of hard drives with 1.6 
and 2 GHZ on them.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Kamp" <fkamp at comcast.net>
To: "Computers (or other) used for amateur radio, communications, or 
experimenting" <ham-computers at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Ham-Computers] Repairing hard drives


>
> On Feb 24, 2006, at 2:02 PM, Philip Atchley wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> He does it all the time?!  Hopefully not to the same drive!
>
> Sounds just crazy enough to work on the old 5-1/4 inch MFM drives. 
> Trouble is, no one uses them any more.  At least no one serious about 
> computering.
>
> Regards,
> Frank Kamp
>
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