Ultimate Hard Disk Modding

[zackbass]

One of my old WD HDDs died on me recently and I've been thinking about what I could do with it. It appears (and sounds!) like the head is broken. I was sitting around this afternoon and decided, hmmm..My HDD would look nice with a window.

I set about with my clean room (ziploc baggie with holes for screwdriver), my set of torx sockets, hacksaw, and the all important dremel tool.

I took the sticker that says "Removal will void warranty" off, and then proceded to remove all the screws, of course in complaince with common cleanroom procedure (dirty basement, ziploc baggie ).

Then I cut out the shape that I wanted the window to be in the HDD "top" which was now removed. I used a drill to start the cut, and then proceded with a scroll saw. I soon realized that I needed to make the actual window out of something. I scoured my workshop for a leftover pice of glass, but settled with the clear plastic top of a case that formerly held transistors. I proceded to cut this into the proper shape.

It was almost time for dinner, so I gooped up the perimiter of the window with black silicone to make an airtight seal and then stuck it onto the metal "top". I had dinner, and came back down to the workshop. The silicone had dried, leaving me a metal HDD top with a window. I screwed it back onto the HDD, and realized that I had lost a screw, oh well. Then I duct taped a "warranty" sticker around the drive so that no dust got in.

Since the drive was orginally broken, I don't know if I ruined the drive or not, but it still looks very cool while powering up.

If anyone can host my pictures, I would be glad to send them.

[OutKlast]

toss it on my way, I'll post it up. [email protected]

[lessthanjake_666]

too bad i've already seen this done. cant remember the thread id otherwise i would post it here for you to see some pictures. It does look pretty sweet. I might even do it if i get a larger HDD to replace my 36gig drive i have now.

[mellojoe]

SWEET!

I've got a few 500mb and 1.2gb drives around here somewhere. I'll see if I can window mod them. That'd be awesome!

[AverageJoe]

Read this a long time ago at overclockers.com. They've got some interesting tips over there.

[zackbass]

I did a very messy job with this one. I'll take some care to make the next one look pretty good.

[Ashpool]

You sure that thing will work?

[OrcWarrior]

Heheh I wanna see the pics

[zackbass]

Originally posted by Ashpool
You sure that thing will work?

Well this one was just practice with a HDD that the head just broke on, so no, it didn't work before or after the mod. I'm going to get some good materials and do it right with a workling srive soon though.

If anyone wants to see exactly what is broken on the drive, I'd be happy to e-mail a video fo the head going out of control.

[OutKlast]

http://www.3000tech.com/computers/mi...rddrivemod.jpg



Looks pretty Ghetto

[OutKlast]

I cut the file in size too, your lucky I have DSL you sent a 850KB picture , I reduced size from 1600 X 1200 to 800 X 600 and applied a little JPG Compression to it to make it a more managable 65KB.

[zackbass]

Yeah, I know. My little Canon is set to take large pics for image quality, and I disn't have time to switch it, and send the pics before I had to leave this morning.

Also, the Ghetto look was not intended. I just got a little messy with the silicone goo, and didn't bother cutting the extra off becasue this one is already useless as a HDD.

[zackbass]

The drive under it in the pic is my ol' Quantum Bigfoot 2.5Gig. I've had it since the days of the pentium 166 . It used to have my Suse Linux on it, but since my HDD failed, its running WinXP. Those old things are so solid, you could probably wear it as body armor