Hi there, all,
The magnets are odd-shaped but very strong. I like to save them. Now that I know the bearings are 4 mm, I'll save them too.
Alan
I've dismantled quite a few hard drives. I think (hope??) the data isn't retrievable once the platters are removed from their spindle.
That activity has cost me a few small diameter pin punches while trying to remove some of the pivot pins. I even managed to bend a couple of the type that have a sliding sleeve round the pin!
My local scrap metal dealer is happy to take the chassis and the platters but he didn't know what to do with a 3 gallon bucket full of magnets!! Incidentally, I read somewhere that the Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnetic material is flammable if the Nickel coating is damaged?!?! Can anyone confirm this??
Several years ago, my lovely but shy assistant bid for '1000+ ex-equipment hard drives, buyer collects' on eBay, intending to purge, test and resell them. (She won the auction. It took three journeys in our Peugeot 405 Estate to get them home.) After she started to test them she came and told me 'They're all dead - when I power them up they just go "click, click"!'. It turned out that they'd all been put through a large and powerful demagnetiser. Judging by the cardboard labels in some of the boxes, I think they'd been doing the rounds of all the Amateur Radio Rally flea markets in Southern England for a year or so!!! I still have a few (hundred) to 'process'. I reckon the scrap value of one hard drive chassis just about equates to our original cost for that drive but that means I put my time in for free! Still, it keeps me off the streets.
I currently have a 2.5" hard drive part-processed - the screws that secure the circuit board to the chassis are even smaller than my smallest torx driver.