What can be done from a computer hard drive. Five reasons not to throw away your old hard drive

Before we start gutting and gutting your hard drive, let's talk about data security. "Dead hard drive" means that the drive is not functioning properly and any attempts you have made to recover data programmatically have failed. If the disk contains really important data, and you suspect that there may be an eccentric who decides to get it, then erase the data so that it cannot be recovered :). Although if the only valuable thing on your screw was stolen rips of Bon Jovi concerts, then your piece of iron is ripe for all sorts of DIY projects ("Do it yourself" projects).

In principle, all DIY projects with hard drives can be divided by the level of technical knowledge and skill of the experimenter. Let's start from simple to complex :).

Extraction of spare parts

The simplest but most useful thing that can be obtained from a hard drive is magnets. Hard drives use super-strong magnets and can be used around the household for just about anything. Here is an example of how one character built a knife holder for the kitchen. He took a wooden plank, removed the core with a chisel, and stuffed magnets into it.

In general, of course, he did this in vain, because when a friend has knives at hand, it’s not far from everyday life :). Good thing I didn't touch the pans.

They are also often used to magnetize screwdrivers or as fridge magnets.

Let's add more creativity

Ordinary screw pancakes can be turned into a steampunk watch. To do this, you will need a few parts, which you can find in hobby stores, or try to discreetly borrow Granny's alarm clock.

And if "your hands are not for boredom", then the next one can be assembled from a hard drive LED clock.

Another old hard drive can be turned into a super-sensitive input device. you can see how the craftsman turned his old HDD into a DJ console.

Here is just a small sketch of interesting solutions from old pieces of iron.

It is interesting how our readers use dead hard drives in everyday life.

Introduction.
Most laptop owners sooner or later face the problem of lack of space on. As a rule, laptops up to and including 15 inches do not have a free second slot for a 2.5 inch device. Therefore, owners are forced to think about either replacing the laptop itself, or replacing its hard drive. After replacing the hard drive, there is always an old drive that can be easily turned into an external USB drive for data transfer.
Naturally, you can purchase a mobile 2.5-inch hard drive and turn it into an external drive. Fortunately, the cost of external drives allows this. For example, at the time of writing, a 250 GB mobile hard drive costs $40, while a 500 GB device from WD costs only $45.
Decide on the type of hard drive.
In fairness, it should be noted that an ordinary desktop 3.5-inch hard drive can also be turned into an external drive - you just can’t call it mobile anymore. If you have an unused 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drive, then first of all you need to determine the type of its interface.
To date, the following interface types exist on the market: IDE (ATA) and various SATA options. As a rule, all SATA interfaces are backward compatible with each other, and we will not dwell on their variations. The situation is completely different between IDE and SATA interfaces, which are absolutely incompatible with each other and have different connectors.

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The figure shows two hard drives with different interfaces. Winchesters have a mobile format of 2.5 inches. On the left is a hard drive with a SATA interface, on the right is a hard drive with an IDE interface.

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In our hands was a 250 GB hard drive from Western Digital of the Scorpio Blue series with a SATA interface. This drive was used in an Acer laptop for a long time, but its capacity was not enough, and it was replaced with a more capacious 500 GB solution.

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Despite long-term use, the hard drive did not cause any complaints, so it was decided to use it as an external mobile drive. To do this, it was necessary to find an external case for him, which we did. External case AGESTAR for 2.5 inch mobile hard drive.
Computer hardware stores offer a wide variety of external cases for 2.5 inch hard drives. Their key difference is this:
- body material,
- type of external port (interface),
- cost.

As a rule, various cases with USB 2.0 interface are presented in stores, there are much fewer cases with eSATA interface, even fewer cases with their combination USB 2.0 & eSATA. Several cases with a modern USB 3.0 interface were found on sale, but their cost exceeded the cost of the hard drive itself, so we did not consider them.

The key difference between USB 2.0 and eSATA is the transfer speed. Using the USB 2.0 interface allows for maximum compatibility, as these ports are available on all computers. A significant disadvantage of the USB 2.0 interface is the low data transfer rate, which will not allow you to unlock the full speed potential of your hard drive.

The eSATA port is more promising, but it is not common and is found only in expensive versions of motherboards, cases and laptops. The eSATA interface allows you to fully unlock the potential of SATA devices.

The material of manufacture can also be very different. Simply put, it's plastic. In more expensive variations, an aluminum case with a leather case is included.
The cost of external cases also varies. The cheapest option will cost the user 3 dollars, expensive versions will cost more than 100 dollars.

Purchasing a $100 case for a hard drive that costs less than $40 when new and is half the price once it's in use is wasteful to say the least. Therefore, for testing, we were given a case worth a symbolic 3 dollars - AgeStar SUB2P1. Completion and external inspection AgeStar SUB2P1.

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From a device worth three dollars, we did not expect any miracles, both in terms of equipment and in terms of performance. The device comes modestly packaged in a package. The front wall of the device is covered by a cardboard box listing the key characteristics of the device. This is support for 2.5 inch mobile hard drives or solid state drives with a SATA interface, the availability of a USB 2.0 data transfer interface and various color options.
In fairness, it should be noted that our suppliers have confirmed that they have not seen any other than the black color of this case.

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After opening the package, we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the set includes an instruction manual completely in Russian.

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The case is completely made of plastic. There are paper stickers on the front wall indicating the model, which will be erased in any case, so we recommend that you immediately remove them from the surface of the device.

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The material of the case is soft black plastic, which does not smell anything, is uniform throughout its structure.

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The covers of the device come off in two different directions, which makes it easy to remove and install the hard drive in an external case.

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The two sides of the outer case are fixed with a plastic latch made from the material of the case. Thanks to the recesses on the walls, the lids are securely fixed and spilling a glass of liquid, or leaving the device in the rain, is unlikely to lead to any problems.

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The device is designed for SATA hard drives, which we have repeatedly emphasized. Inside soldered controllers with SATA ports for power and data transfer.

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On the side wall there is a mini USB port for data transfer and hard drive power supply. There is no additional port to provide power to the drive, which may cause some problems for users. With a weak power supply that lowers the voltage along the 5 volt line, you often have to deal with problems starting the hard drive. As a rule, connecting the drive directly to the port on the motherboard, and not on the case of the system unit, using a high-quality USB cable allows you to forget about this problem.

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Sellers of computer components often talk about the presence of a USB data cable in the kit as an advantage of one or another external case or offer to purchase it separately if it is not. We advise our users not to pay attention to this, as a mini-USB-to-USB cable is usually found in almost every family and is often supplied with mobile phones. In our case, we successfully used a stale data cable from a Nokia mobile phone.

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The next step is to install the hard drive in the case. This is done quite simply - by light pressing. Most importantly, first rotate the hard drive correctly according to the SATA power and data ports located in the case.

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The absence of any protruding elements on the hard drive controller circuit allows you not to worry about its rear surface when transporting and using the device.

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Some users may argue that the plastic case does not provide adequate heat dissipation from the hard drive. Naturally, external cases made of aluminum cope with this task much more effectively. At the same time, we should not forget that mobile hard drives do not have such a high power consumption to suffer from overheating, and in laptops, as a rule, they are not cooled by anything else.

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After the assembly of the device is completed, the stage of its testing and use begins. The power supply to the device is accompanied by the glow of the blue LED, which also symbolizes the user about the data transfer process. It should be noted that not everyone will have a smooth start with the created external drive. If the hard drive has already been used, it has been formatted and partitions have been created on it, you will not have problems getting started. It will be defined as a regular USB flash drive using the Plug & Play method. But for those users who have purchased a new hard drive without formatting and with no partitions, there will be a problem that will be associated with the absence of a drive letter in the "My Computer" tab.
To do this, you need to create partitions on the hard drive and format it. This can be done through various boot disks, but it's better not to bother and do it in the Windows operating system itself.

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To do this, you need to go to the "Control Panel" through the "Start" section, then visit the "Administrative Tools" section. In this section, select "Computer Management", where in the "Disk Management" tab you can partition and format the newly connected external drive. After creating partitions, formatting them, you will have access to them through the "My Computer" tab and you will be able to exchange with the drive, as with a regular hard drive. Test configuration.
The assembled external drive was tested both on a desktop computer based on a modern Core i7 processor and no less modern motherboard, and on an Acer Aspire 7730 laptop based on a Core 2 Duo processor. It should be noted that the level of performance on two different systems turned out to be comparable equal.

1. Data reading speed was tested in HD Tach 3.0.4.0

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It's nice to note that the external drive we assembled shows a much higher level of performance than the WD My Passport Essential external hard drive we tested earlier. The maximum data transfer rate was 34.3 Mb / s, and the average delay was about 17.9 ms.

2. Data reading speed in HD Tune 4.5.

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In the second synthetic test, we got similar data to the previous ones, which also turned out to be slightly better than that of the official WD My Passport Essential external hard drive.

3. The speed of writing files of 64 MB in HD Tune 4.5.

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Somewhat more valuable is testing close to practice, by writing 64 MB files. In this test, we got quite expected results, which were also limited only by the capabilities of the USB 2.0 interface.
Separately, I would like to note that during the entire testing, the temperature of the hard drive did not exceed 35 degrees Celsius, while a similar hard drive installed in a laptop had a temperature of about 43 degrees. Therefore, users will not need to worry about the working conditions of the hard drive in this case.

4. The speed of loading the Windows 7 operating system.

In the course of practical testing on the boot speed of the Windows 7 operating system image, we received results similar to other external drives with a USB 2.0 interface.

5. Drive performance evaluation in Windows 7 environment.

We tested the performance of the external drive we assembled using the Windows 7 operating system. To do this, you need to call the command in the command line: "winsat disk -drive g -ran -write -count 10", where "g" is the letter of the drive under test in the system.

From the test results, it can be seen that the drive we assembled received a much higher rating than the factory WD My Passport Essential solution. Conclusion.
According to the materials of this article, it is clear that any mobile hard drive can be turned into a good external drive without any hassle. Especially for testing, we asked to provide us with the cheapest external case, worth $ 3. Three dollars allows you to get an excellent external drive from a mobile hard drive, at least for data storage. Not to mention the fact that the same external case facilitates the recovery of data from the hard drive of "dead" laptops.

Despite the fact that AgeStar products are criticized by many for their low quality, after many years of using it, I have only a positive impression of it. First of all, it is for a democratic cost. Marriage occurs in all manufacturers, even if AgeStar has a slightly higher figure than Thermaltake. But the latter has no analogue to the presented external case for three dollars and with a guarantee of 6 months. We award AgeStar products with a gold medal for the best performance/price ratio.

If your hard drive is broken and cannot be restored - then, as in a joke, you can get an ashtray, a mirror and a magnet from it :) In fact, you can get MUCH more, and I'll tell you now how to do it and what is there interesting.
If you do not have a faulty hard drive (hard drive) - do not be discouraged, contact your computer friends, just friends, or any computer equipment service center, they definitely should have such copies (usually men are too lazy to throw out old trash in workshops). The "older" the disc, the better: before the material and all sorts of tricks were not spared.

For the master class, I took as many as three pieces (I saved up for a long time) to show the possible differences (although they are usually all different, you will never guess what is under the cover this time) In addition to the hard drive itself, we will need screwdrivers (minimally - Phillips and flat (" +" and "-"), as much as possible - a set of screwdrivers as in the photo in the upper left corner, namely a hexagonal asterisk nozzle).

This photo shows that there are different thicknesses. It is better (if there is a choice) to take a thicker one, there may be a bonus: not one, but even two or three mirrors! Plus some other stuff.

If the "screws" (the slang name for a hard drive) are such (of such a company), then it will be easier for you, you only need a Phillips and straight screwdrivers, they are usually found in every home. I don’t know where, but I came across ALL hard drives from this company with cross mounts ...

like this

We unscrew the bolts, and take a flat screwdriver (as a lever, so it’s better to be stronger)

We put a screwdriver under the cover and slightly turning it, we go through the perimeter. The lid is usually glued to something that looks like silicone, so simply pressing the lever does not work well, all the more you can break something inside with a sharp movement.

Does not work? something preventing you from opening it? Still would! Manufacturers are not stupid:) there is always one or two. or even three hidden bolts under the stickers :) Feel with a screwdriver and you will find dimples that are easy to dig with the same straight screwdriver. That's where I hid it :)
And another tip: when you unscrew the bolts, you don’t need to do it in turn, you need to loosen each one by half a turn or a turn and only then unscrew them to the end, otherwise it may turn out that one or two of the last ones can’t be unscrewed due to the skewed cover. Another IMPORTANT: when the bolt does not want to unscrew in any way, you do not need to turn it with force - this way you can comb either a screwdriver or a hole. It is necessary to press the screwdriver with almost all the weight perpendicular to the product, and so, while pressing, gently try to turn it. The harder you push, the better. Even the fasteners that my husband could not unscrew =) The main thing here is technology and accuracy, not strength =) Although you still need strength, if your hand is tired, it’s better to get down to business in a couple of hours, when your hand rests.

So, we've got it all. And what a beauty inside the lid! Everything glitters :)
Someone decides that beauty is needed in order to admire it and leave everything as it is, but I'm greedy :) Therefore, I analyze further.

Now you need to unwind the top elements in turn. It is better to start with a magnet and a "prickly thing". And as a warning - when unwinding, use the method described by me above, since in the middle everything is usually screwed very tightly and you can ruin the whole thing.

After the magnet is unscrewed (sometimes, by the way, it is not screwed at all, but simply fixed on the protrusions in the case), we remove the upper part of the magnet with the same lever screwdriver, only very carefully, it can re-magnetize and beat off your fingers! The lower part of the magnet (more often it is not a magnet, but just a piece of iron) can also be screwed on, or it can simply be easily removed after removing the magnet

Now it's time for the mirror. There are many complications here:
the first - the element rotates and must be held firmly and pressed down to unscrew all the bolts
the second - the mirror is very easy to scratch with a screwdriver, and then these scratches will not please at all
and the third - according to the law of meanness, how not to follow the rules that I described above - the last bolt ALWAYS turns out to be tightly-tightly twisted ... here you already have to tinker, rest and tinker again (after all, you need to carefully unscrew for the first and second reasons)
BUT the result of greed is always the same: after all, everything unwinds and very interesting and beautiful things get: in the photo there is a ring with holes ...

The mirror itself (here you have to rejoice and clap your hands - especially if there are several mirrors)
By the way, now you understand why the name "hard drive"?
The disk must be taken out carefully by moving the little thing on the right (I call it a mouse, why - I will explain later)

When all the mirrors are removed and the joy has calmed down, you can unscrew the motor (located under the disk) and the "mouse". The "mouse" can simply be removed from the base up, or it can be screwed on.

I don’t know, maybe it’s still a bad photo, but in this circle in the middle there is a recess. It was lucky if, in addition to the recess, there is a transverse slot - then you can unscrew this cylinder with a regular straight screwdriver. I was not lucky - and therefore we look closer at the recess, or rather at its shape. This is a hexagon for me - it means I take it from a set of screwdrivers (there is also a set of keys - men should know) approximately the right size and twist.

Here it is! Only now I realized that I didn’t take a photo of the “mouse”:(((But I think if you look at the rest of the photos (and especially make out yourself), you will understand why. When the cylinder is removed, it turns out something like an “eye "mouse. And the sharp end is her nose. Some old hard drives used colored wires, and when I tore off the "prickly thing" cable from the mouse, she had funny antennae wires sticking out on the tip of her nose :) Therefore, the" mouse "

Let's return to our trial. Here's what we ended up with. This contraption can be used in different ways: like a hammer :), like an ashtray (only you have to screw the motor into place and cover the holes with something) or you can do it somehow, I think you should have no problems using it.
But first, we must also turn over and unscrew something that is no less valuable to us.

We unscrew 4-5 bolts (I think an intermediate photo is not needed) - and lo and behold! in addition to a cool scheme (from which, if necessary, you can unscrew the microcircuits, or use it as a decoration on your own), we also have a miracle foam rubber. A miracle, because it is unique in terms of density, softness, etc. It was from her that I made the pupils for my felted dragon, but you can cut out anything! Sometimes foam rubber is covered with a film on one side, and sometimes without it. If the hard drive is sooo old - there is an uninteresting foam rubber, and most often burnt in some places.

Here are our treasures :)
By the way, maybe your fantasy will tell you WHAT can be made from bolts? I already have a SEA of them, of different sizes and colors ... maybe your fantasy will tell you? :)

Below I give more photos of possible parsing options using other hard drives as an example.

You just need to pry off a piece of metal and peel it off a little from all sides, glue, as you remember, like silicone and it stretches. The main thing is not to bend

This time another surprise was in store for me - a metal ring under the lid. At first I thought it was a magnet and was delighted, but the effect of the magnet was created by a very tenacious glue.

You can disconnect the circuit immediately, even before disassembling the entire "screw". Especially when it is attached with such a train that you can accidentally tear it if you do it the other way around.
The cable is easy to protrude, just pull on it.

This is the advantage I was talking about when I pointed out the thickness of the hard drive. Here the top cover turned out to be very roomy, and there are only two holes in it (they can either be sealed or screwed in the same bolts), this is an ideal ashtray :) or a container for small items .. you decide.

If you have an unnecessary, old, or maybe non-working hard drive lying around at home and, in addition, you like to do interesting nonsense, then you are at the right place. Today we will consider one more, besides the main, use of the hard drive. There is nothing sensible and useful in this, but I hope you will be interested.

What do we do with an old hard drive?

The hard drive rotates at a breakneck speed during operation. The process of hard disk operation can be found in the article What do you think will happen if the disk is spun up to breakneck speed and allowed to walk around the world? This is exactly what our old hard drive will do. The following describes the process that precedes this fun.

Preparing an old hard drive

To prepare an old hard drive for this event, you need to remove its cover and remove the hard drive head, which is used to read information. If everything is done correctly, then the hard drive should look like this:

As you can see, pulling out the magnetic disk itself is no longer a problem. This is exactly the result we need to achieve: the magnetic disk should easily get off its mink, but this does not need to be done yet. When the time comes, he will get out of there himself.

What do we do next?

After that, we need to connect power to our old hard drive. This should be done from the computer's power supply. If you connect power to the hard drive and supply electricity to the power supply, then our drive will start spinning. This is what we are striving for. Now slowly lower the hard drive to the floor and begin to gently tilt it so that the open side approaches the floor. Somewhere in a perpendicular position (plus or minus a few degrees), the disk will be able to fly off its hole. You can help him with this. Here, make sure that the direction of rotation of the disk does not coincide with your location. As soon as the disk flies off, it will rush out of sight across the floor.

The principle is clear. It's like toy cars that need to be charged in reverse to get them to go far enough. It's the same here: we charge our disk with kinetic energy and lower it to the floor. Only unlike a toy car, here you need to be a little careful. Since some hard drives can spin up to 15,000 rpm, you have something like a trimming wheel in front of you. Therefore, you do not need to put fragile items or close friends in the path of the old hard drive.

But don't worry too much about security. The untwisted disc runs perfectly straight, so you can choose the trajectory for it yourself and not be afraid that it will turn the wrong way. We did not observe any destructive actions in relation to the floor and the wall (the only thing that in my case was not afraid to face the disk).

This is how you can make a new toy from an old hard drive.

Have you purchased a new, fast solid state drive (SSD) and your old one is lying around? Give it a new task and use it as an external storage device. To do this, you only need a case with a SATA controller; it is available for both 2.5" and 3.5" models. For the latter, a power supply is required, while compact drives have enough power supply through the USB port.

Labor intensity: average, costs: 600 rubles.

Mini NAS on router

Need to access the same data across your entire home network? You don't need expensive and bulky network attached storage (NAS) for this - a USB drive can do this task if it is connected to your router. Newer devices are equipped with the corresponding port.

First you need to format the USB drive from under Windows OS in the NTFS file system and then just connect it to the router. In this case, the latter must have a USB port and must support the appropriate functionality. Now, typing 192.168.1.1 (or similar) in the browser's address bar will take you to the router's user interface.

Click the USB Settings | Sharing a storage device” (for TP-Link routers, for other devices, the name of the menu items may differ) and make sure that the disk starts up.

To access data on your home network, it will be enough in Windows Explorer to type an address like "\\192.168.1.1\Volume1". A permanent connection is achieved by right-clicking on the folder you plan to allow access to and selecting Map Network Drive.

Labor intensity: low, costs: no

Flash drive instead of a password

There is also a practical use for a small USB flash drive. For example, when you sign in to Windows, you can unlock your computer without entering a password. To do this, you need the Rohos Logon Key tool (1450 rubles), Predator (650 rubles) or free USBLogon (http://www.rohos.ru/products/rohos-logon-free/).

After installation, you need to select the connected USB drive and configure the security settings. After entering the Windows password, the flash drive is ready for use. Unfortunately, working with USBLogon is complicated by the German-language interface, but even without knowledge of German, it is easy to figure it out.

Labor intensity: average, costs: no

flash drive for emergencies

If the computer no longer works as it should, a bootable USB flash drive comes to the rescue. The Sardu tool (http://www.sarducd.it/) installs up to 20 different antivirus programs on the drive, and also provides various versions of Linux and other first aid software.

> Training: in the left sidebar, the selected software is listed by category. Check the required programs. We recommend choosing multiple antiviruses and a Linux version (e.g. Ubuntu).

> Flash drive creation: on the right sidebar, click on the symbol with the USB drive. You can start creating a bootable flash drive.

> Use in an emergency: to use a bootable flash drive in case of an "accident", you need to change the boot sequence from the drives in BIOS Setup.

In this case, you should set the boot priority from USB to HDD. Then select the desired program from the list. Don't forget to revert your BIOS changes after "repairing" your computer.

Photo: manufacturing companies, racum/Flickr.com