Scared...Hard drive modification

Ok,

Here are some pics. I just got home from Oktoberfest.... Kinda too inebriated to put the drives together right now, but here are the pics of the covers as they came to me in the mail.... I will post pics of the drives put together soon.

Left is an acrylic cut without the paper off.
Middle is an acrylic cut with the paper off.
Right is the original supplied drive cover.
Top are custom cut neoprene gaskets the same outline as the drive covers.


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2 questions.

Did the drive have a microfilter in it? Or was it mounted directly onto the flipside of the old drive cover, glued on around the hole?

What's the pink thing in your pic :D

This is gonna be awesome. You should sell DD the rights to do this or something... if it works :)
 
Arcygenical said:
2 questions.

Did the drive have a microfilter in it? Or was it mounted directly onto the flipside of the old drive cover, glued on around the hole?

What's the pink thing in your pic :D

This is gonna be awesome. You should sell DD the rights to do this or something... if it works :)
Click to expand...

Yes there was a microfilter mounted onto the flipside of the old drive cover. I have the microfilter and some other parts in a steril bag at my workplace.

The pink thing is my daughters 'kitty cat' =) Touch that and she'll kill you!

-Pete
 
looks pretty good, $50 is not bad either.

I don't recommend using RAID 0 though, especially if chances of failure are higher than normal.
 
Here are the pics of the first drive assembled, along with it cooperating in RAID-0.

I have not built the second drive yet because I need to contact Danger Den on a modification.... However, the first drive is built and you can see it working fine in a RAID array.

Also completed a full format successfully!!!

Here are the pics,

-Pete

BTW - ya ya, I know.... The drive shouldn't be on carpet... Flame me if needed =)
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Can your camera do small videos? That has to look pretty awesome in motion.

Congrats on the awesome and successful mod.

I never would have thought to call DD to do something like this.
 
I have a camcorder that I can make a movie with. I will do just that as soon as I get my modded case together. I have some ideas for HDD activity lights.

=)
 
Wow... on carpet, self modded window, *AND* RAID0... I beleive you have hit the data killing trifecta there... (seriously though, this is the best custom hd window mod I have seen)

Did you run a full scandisk including bad sector test? if you haven't, I would... and if it comes up with no damage then you can really smile wide.
 
I haven't done a full scandisk yet. However, I have done a full format. I will do a full scandisk soon and post results. Honestly, I don't see any issues. You have no idea the amount of precaution I took doing this. But you're totally correct, you never know right?!
 
The drive was put back together in a clean environment... The dust you see is on the outside of the acrylic. There is no dust in the drive.
 
Looks friggin awesome man, good work. Props to DD too.

Now have something etched in the acrylic. :D
 
impressive :cool:


and the hard drive being on the carpet like that won't do anything, the metal case acts as shielding.
 
Too bad NCQ really slows down that read/write arm eh?

older non NCQ drives really went to town when something was being read from them, but at least you'll finally get visual justification for having a fragmented drive :D.
 
ChingChang said:
impressive :cool:


and the hard drive being on the carpet like that won't do anything, the metal case acts as shielding.
Click to expand...

Except for the fact that the ESD sensitive components are on the bottom of the drive, on the outside of the metal enclosure, which by the way, no longer completely surrounds the innards of the drive. Even with the metal cover still on, there are lots of connections between the inside of the drive to the outside, hence, allowing any ESD to travel from the outside of the drive to the inside.
 
SarverSystems said:
Except for the fact that the ESD sensitive components are on the bottom of the drive, on the outside of the metal enclosure, which by the way, no longer completely surrounds the innards of the drive. Even with the metal cover still on, there are lots of connections between the inside of the drive to the outside, hence, allowing any ESD to travel from the outside of the drive to the inside.
Click to expand...
yes, but the ESD sensitive components were raised above the ground, not touching the carpet. And those components don't contact the metal casing on the outside. There is something between that, usually either plastic or foam.
 
ESD does not have to contact the component to cause harm to it. It can be a few inches away and the ESD will "jump".

The more negatively charged the carpet, and the more positively charged the drive, the farther away it can be and still be damaged by ESD.

Lets let the ESD thing drop for now and get back to the subject at hand. The drive. And I gotta say, it looks awesome. Especially for $50.
 
I know it can "jump", but the PCB isn't even close to where the drive is touching the carpet, and I highly doubt it's going to travel through the entire metal casing then jump around the foam/plastic into the PCB. Cause the charge would become weaker after travelling through the case. I don't even think there's a reason why it would anyway, even if it was possible.
It might even be grounded through the SATA power connector too, but not sure about that one...
 
You know what would look badass on there? Anodized thumbscrews holding the cover on.

It would make it appear that you could easily change out the platters.
 
WOW! That shure beats the crap out of the Raptor X with the super tiny window.... Congrats :D and you saved what, like $100 for something that looks ALOT cooler. Kudos to DD for making an awsome cover.. and kudos to you for having the balls to take apart a raptor drive :p .
 
Man that is clean, great work man. I gotta give ya credit for having the balls to do this.
great risk = great reward
 
Stress test it some, run it through some read/write cycles, etc. If it still works and you and DD can get some sort of a deal going, you could make a fortune off a drive like that. It looks amazing.
 
The center spindle doesn't need a screw or support from the cover... it looks like this makes the raptor a pretty good subject for this kind of mod.

My 74gb raptor died after about 6 months of normal use. It still works for about an hour and then you get the clicks of death. hehe...

I like this mod though... I am curious of how the drive is working after some use.
 
I'm glad hard drives are getting more attention. They definitely need a face lift.
 
Yes, a video is a must. You also should send those pics to DD to show them your final product of their work. I know I would want to see how it worked out if I made it.
 
dang, you stole my idea! Nice work! :)
where did you get those gaskets made at? did DD make those too?
 
Sweet mod, this really looks awesome. Is there any noise difference with the acrylic cover?
 
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