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Do hard drives fail from open covers?

S

Sam Nickaby

Jan 1, 1970
0
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

Thanks
 
S

Steve Lewinsky

Jan 1, 1970
0
Why would you open all 3 in the first place? Was one not enough?
Did you think the GIGs in the other drives looked different??
Hard drives use very precise floating head. they are very close to the
plattens.
As much as you feel you are in a dust free area when you open then, there is
still alot of dust. It is possible that the regular airbourne dust in your
place has damaged the heads or plattens.
Or the controller boards have just crapped out. Check the connections from
the board to the heads, as these are usually delicate.
 
G

Gerard Bok

Jan 1, 1970
0
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

Yes.
That's why it says: 'do not open' or 'warranty void if seal
broken' on the sticker.
 
J

John Doe

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam Nickaby said:
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will
not look for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it
will click forever and won't boot. All three have the same thing
in common, there covers were opened for a second in a clean,
dust free room out of curiosity. Do hard drives fail from a
quick cover removal?

I accidentally broke the foil seal on one of my Western Digital
hard disk drives. I tried taping it shut but it failed anyway. So
then I tried spraying some WD-40 into it but that didn't do any
good. So I sprayed a lot more in there and it just kept clicking
and clicking. Heheh.

Yes, the fact you opened them and exposed the heads and platter,
and then they failed is a good proof of what those who know will
tell you. The required ultimate physical precision is probably why
recovering data from a hard disk drive is so expensive. On the
other hand, backups are cheap and easy.
 
B

BobG

Jan 1, 1970
0
Clean rooms have micron filters. The gap between head and disk is
smaller than the dust particles!
 
N

Nog

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam Nickaby said:
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever
and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

Thanks

It's just like throwing a shovel full of gravel on a vinyl record.
Air is filthy. Harddrives are delicate. They are sealed for a reason.
 
J

John Fields

Jan 1, 1970
0
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

---
Yeah, they do.

You may _think_ you were in a dust-free room, but as far as the
drives are concerned, when you opened them up they thought you were
throwing in a bunch of boulders.
 
T

Travis Jordan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam said:
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. ...
All three have the same thing in common,
there covers were opened for a second in a clean,
dust free room out of curiosity.

Where did you find a dust free room? Did you rent a clean room or did
you borrow a laminar flow hood?
 
O

Ol' Duffer

Jan 1, 1970
0
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

Maybe this is a troll, but...

In general, there's no such thing as a dust free room.
Hard drive heads fly over the surface of the disk on a
microscopic thin cushion of air, and even tiny bits of
dust will scratch the surface. They are assembled and
sealed in a *very* clean environment. Even clean rooms
where you put on a bunny suit and go through an airlock
are questionable for the level of cleanliness you would
need to open a drive. More appropriate would be the
glove box approach, but you would have to clean the drive
meticulously first, or the dust accumulated on the outside
of the drive from the real world would contaminate the
"clean" environment upon introduction. There are ways
and means to do it, but all are beyond the realm of
"out of curiousity". Do not open working hard drives!
Doing so renders them junk.
 
S

Sam Goldwasser

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ol' Duffer said:
Maybe this is a troll, but...

In general, there's no such thing as a dust free room.
Hard drive heads fly over the surface of the disk on a
microscopic thin cushion of air, and even tiny bits of
dust will scratch the surface. They are assembled and
sealed in a *very* clean environment. Even clean rooms
where you put on a bunny suit and go through an airlock
are questionable for the level of cleanliness you would
need to open a drive. More appropriate would be the
glove box approach, but you would have to clean the drive
meticulously first, or the dust accumulated on the outside
of the drive from the real world would contaminate the
"clean" environment upon introduction. There are ways
and means to do it, but all are beyond the realm of
"out of curiousity". Do not open working hard drives!
Doing so renders them junk.

Does anyone have that diagram DEC used to include with
disk drive user/service info? You know the one - it
shows the heads flying over the surface of the disk
next to a particle of dust and cigarette smoke, which
looked like boulders in comparison.

And that was in the days where the flying height was
10 or 100 times greater than it is today!

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/lasersam.htm
| Mirror Sites: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive
traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can
contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.
 
J

JeffM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed.
[their] covers were opened for a second in a...dust free room
Sam Nickaby

Does anyone have that diagram
DEC used to include with disk drive user/service info?
You know the one -
it shows the heads flying over the surface of the disk
next to a particle of dust and cigarette smoke,
which looked like boulders in comparison.
Sam Goldwasser

Yeah. That's the 1st thing that came to my mind.
I tried to Google it, but I'm not finding anything.
It looked like this:
: View in monospaced font (Courier).
: ________
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: __________ |
: / \ | human
: / \ | hair
: / \ |
: / \ |
:============== | dust | \
: |_____| ___ | particle | \
: head | | | \
: | \ / \
: air gap \ / \
: | \ / \
: platter | \ / \
:=================================================================
:=================================================================
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam Nickaby said:
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed. First it will not look
for datas. Later it will not format. Then finally it will click forever and
won't boot. All three have the same thing in common, there covers
were opened for a second in a clean, dust free room out of curiosity.
Do hard drives fail from a quick cover removal?

Thanks


You may get lucky once in a while, but opening the cover will almost always
kill the drive. Sometimes it'll die moments later, other times it'll go a
few weeks then start developing read errors but once the seal has been
broken the drive should never be trusted again.
 
A

Anna Daptor

Jan 1, 1970
0
JeffM said:
Three of my 60-80 Gig Maxtor hard drives failed.
[their] covers were opened for a second in a...dust free room
Sam Nickaby

Does anyone have that diagram
DEC used to include with disk drive user/service info?
You know the one -
it shows the heads flying over the surface of the disk
next to a particle of dust and cigarette smoke,
which looked like boulders in comparison.
Sam Goldwasser

Yeah. That's the 1st thing that came to my mind.
I tried to Google it, but I'm not finding anything.
It looked like this:
: View in monospaced font (Courier).
: ________
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: /
: __________ |
: / \ | human
: / \ | hair
: / \ |
: / \ |
:============== | dust | \
: |_____| ___ | particle | \
: head | | | \
: | \ / \
: air gap \ / \
: | \ / \
: platter | \ / \
:=================================================================
:=================================================================



The image included on this page by any chance?
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/heads/opHeight.html
 
S

Sam Nickaby

Jan 1, 1970
0
Steve Lewinsky said:
Why would you open all 3 in the first place? Was one not enough?
Did you think the GIGs in the other drives looked different??

The 20 Gig contains two platters. The 130 Gigs contains 3 platters. How
could 3 platters holds so much data? Straight from its factory wrapper,
I crack the lids open inside a large clean, clear plastic bag inside a hepa
filtered closet which still doesn't help.
 
M

Michael Black

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam Nickaby" ([email protected]) said:
The 20 Gig contains two platters. The 130 Gigs contains 3 platters. How
could 3 platters holds so much data? Straight from its factory wrapper,
I crack the lids open inside a large clean, clear plastic bag inside a hepa
filtered closet which still doesn't help.
Your mistake was in opening drives that you wanted.

There are loads of smaller drives that people don't want, which would
have fulfilled your curiosity. And ironically, you might find that
the smaller the capacity the more the platters.

But you didn't need to open the drives to find out how so few
platters could hold so much capacity. Indeed, opening them didn't
do a bit in answering that.

Michael
 
J

John Doe

Jan 1, 1970
0
....
You may get lucky once in a while, but opening the cover will
almost always kill the drive. Sometimes it'll die moments later,
other times it'll go a few weeks then start developing read
errors but once the seal has been broken the drive should never
be trusted again.

To be clear. No hard disk drive should be trusted. Doesn't really
matter what the apparent condition or known
reliability/MTBF/whatever. Always keep backups of data you
consider important, preferably on removable media.
 
S

Sam Goldwasser

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Doe said:
[email protected] (Michael Black) wrote:

...
more the platters.

That might be interesting trivia if it were true.

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=85

Click on the Configuration tab for each of the sizes and look at a
number of platters.

If you can find data for a series which supports your contention,
please post the link.

But technology is changing so fast that indeed, a drive that appears
similar on the outside may have a different bit density on the platters.

The contention that an older, lower capacity drive, may have more platters
is certainly true!

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/lasersam.htm
| Mirror Sites: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive
traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is
ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can
contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.
[email protected] (Michael Black) wrote:

...
more the platters.

That might be interesting trivia if it were true.

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=85

Click on the Configuration tab for each of the sizes and look at a
number of platters.

If you can find data for a series which supports your contention,
please post the link.

But technology is changing so fast that indeed, a drive that appears
similar on the outside may have a different bit density on the platters.
 
A

Allodoxaphobia

Jan 1, 1970
0
...

To be clear. No hard disk drive should be trusted. Doesn't really
matter what the apparent condition or known
reliability/MTBF/whatever.

Always keep backups of data you
consider important, preferably on removable media.

Especially if you have any idiots anywhere nearby that think it's
"ok" to take the protective cover off and gawk at the insides.
 
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