Hard disk internals (2)

[ewx]

I got the platters off.

Rather than following the video linked from the previous posting I levered the upper (outer) ring up from the side, after a couple of minutes it went “ping” and flew across the table. The lower rings and the platters came straight off.

The round grey area at the bottom right is a couple of layers of rubbery material; the space underneath connects to a small hole through to the other side. This would be the breather filter, the purpose of which is to equalize air pressure inside and outside the drive without also letting in dust. The hole is under the controller board when the disk is fully assembled, removing the need for “do not cover this hole” warnings found on some disks.

A read/write head. The side you're looking at faces the platter (and is very close to it - probably under a micrometer). I believe this is an anisotropic magnetoresistive head.

I added the latest images to the same Flickr set.

Update:

The platters had already found their way onto a shelf by this point but I think apart from that all the components are there.

Comments

[angoel.livejournal.com]

The platters are awesome fiddle objects. They're very flat and have some minor magnetism left, which makes them stick together and pull apart in a highly satisfying fashion. At least, the ones which I extracted from a defunct hard drive a couple of years back were...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I've put them in a coaster pile.