Before we start gutting your HDD and gut him, let's talk about data security. "Dead hard drive" means that the drive is not functioning properly and any attempt you make to recover data programmatically were not successful. If the disk contains really important data, and you suspect that there may be an eccentric who decides to get it, then erase the data so that it cannot be recovered :). Although if the only valuable thing on your screw was stolen rips of Bon Jovi concerts, then your piece of iron is ripe for all sorts of DIY projects ("Do it yourself" projects).
In principle, all DIY projects with hard drives, can be divided according to the levels of technical knowledge and skills of the experimenter. Let's start from simple to complex :).
Extraction of spare parts
The simplest but most useful thing that can be obtained from a hard drive is magnets. AT hard drives super strong magnets are used, and they can be used in the household for everyone. Here is an example of how one character built a knife holder for the kitchen. He took a wooden plank, removed the core with a chisel, and stuffed magnets into it.
In general, of course, he did this in vain, because when a friend has knives at hand, it’s not far from everyday life :). Good thing I didn't touch the pans.
They are also often used to magnetize screwdrivers or as fridge magnets.
Let's add more creativity
Ordinary screw pancakes can be turned into a steampunk watch. To do this, you will need a few parts, which you can find in hobby stores, or try to discreetly borrow Granny's alarm clock.
And if "your hands are not for boredom", then the next one can be assembled from a hard drive LED clock.
Another old hard drive can be turned into a super-sensitive input device. you can see how the craftsman turned his old HDD into a DJ console.
Here is just a small sketch of interesting solutions from old pieces of iron.
I wonder how our readers use the dead in everyday life hard disks.
Things that are out of order are not always garbage. Just need to figure out how to replace them special purpose and use it in a new way. For example, an old hard drive. At first glance, it is a waste material to be disposed of. But if you look closely, you can find many creative ideas for its further use.
Clock
If you get creative, in the end you can get desk clock reminiscent of classical mechanics. You don't have to spend much on all this beauty. In addition to the hard drive, you need to stock up on screws, a screwdriver, superglue and a heat gun. You will also need a drill, a drill. The hard drive is disassembled, all elements are removed from it.
In order for the product to be not only functional, but also beautiful, surround the plate with LEDs. Strip led strip attached to the wall of the chamber with super glue.
Grinder
In order to make a grinder, you need to take a screwdriver and sandpaper. The manufacturing method is really very simple. All unnecessary components, represented by magnets, are removed from the disks. This is done with a screwdriver. After that, the disk is removed, and a circle is cut out according to its size.
Important! Power is not provided by a conventional socket. You will need a power supply. In order for it to start without motherboard, you need to cut off the copper wire and plug it into the connector, connect it to the black and green wires.
At the end, the emery wheel is glued to the disk, fixed and connected to the power supply.
portable storage
A portable drive is simply made from a hard drive. For this, a container is taken and a hard drive is placed in it. For designs over 2.5 inches, you will need to buy a power adapter.
A working hard drive can be used as a cloud server. This requires a single-board computer and the ability of even a novice IT specialist. The end result will be a device that will provide access to all computer data from gadgets connected to one wi-fi router.
Hard drives have an element called a neodymium magnet. It is quite large, so it can attract a lot of different things. With it, you can create a stand that will hold knives in the air. To do this, you have to take a bar, a magnet, glue and simple tools like a screwdriver and a knife.
wind chimes
One of the cute things that you can create from a disc is a door bell. Before that, you can take the disks, the case, the usual fastening ring made of metal, as well as the cord. Connect all this together, and you get a real work of art.
Secret safe
In standard small apartments, there is not enough space to install a secret safe for jewelry or money. But such useful thing You can do it yourself from an old hard drive. It is necessary to remove the components from its body, and then attach the cover with a small bolt to the corner. The container will open by turning.
For this device, in addition to the hard drive, you need to take a basin, make a hole in it, stock up on a lid from a tin, the tin itself, and knitting needles from a bicycle. First you need to make three holes in the disk on the cover. Next, the bicycle spokes are soldered with the resulting device, and a semblance of a box is made from the can. The cover is connected to the structure, the middle is removed from it. Fuel can be poured into the hole. All this is put in a bowl and sugar is poured. At the end, alcohol is ignited and the disc is turned on.
flash drive
If you want to surprise your friends with an interesting and unusual gigantic flash drive, you can use an old hard drive. First you need to remove the mounting screws with the disc and cover. Next, a usb-splitter is selected that is suitable in size. It is attached to the place of the central disk, and the connection is lubricated with superglue. At the end, a flash drive is attached and a lid is assembled.
Read why you shouldn't rush to throw away your old hard drive. How to secure the data stored on such a disk, if the disk can still be recovered. The development of electronic technologies does not stand still, and the development of new computer devices and their components takes the first place here. Stationary personal computers, laptops, netbooks, smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks - these are far from full list devices that we use, and it is steadily growing and expanding. The most widely used personal computers are used both for solving production or office tasks, and for personal use.
The essence of the problem
The main advantage of computers is their high data processing speed, improved performance compared to other devices, as well as the ability to store and instantly process a huge amount of data. Not the least role in reaching the peak of popularity of personal computers is played by internal devices for storing user information - hard drives HDD.
The use of modern materials and technologies allows you to create hard drives large capacity at a relatively low final cost. You will no longer surprise anyone with a hard drive with a capacity of "10 TB", "12 TB" and even "16 TB".
Relatively recently, solid-state drives have become widely used. SSD. Made using chip-based technology, drives SSD use flash memory to store information. Thanks to this approach, SSDs are smaller, lighter and significantly more high speed loading and processing information, compared to standard hard drives. However, they are inferior to the latter due to several times higher price and much lower wear resistance.
No wonder users decide to replace outdated versions hard drives new storage devices, more modern and faster.
However, as attractive as the use case hard drive to store basic user data, there are objective reasons to use other information storages. A large number of external drives are available today and USB flash drives. Additionally, due to the ability to access from anywhere, a variety of cloud storage data on the Internet.
One of the important reasons for replacing old hard disk new is a high probability of failure of the latter. Very often, drive average uptime HDD is five to six years. And when the disk's life comes to an end, a series of signs appear to signal this. We described in more detail about the possible signs of failure of your hard drive in our earlier article: "Five signs your hard drive is nearing the end of its life, and what to do about it now?" .
Or your hard drive has already become unusable, and you are determined to throw it away as unnecessary. But do not rush to make hasty decisions. And in this case, your disk is still of some value, even if you checked it and it is not possible to recover information from it. Read our article on the possible use of old drives in any condition.
The drive still works great!
Not every hard drive is bad just because it's old. As we wrote above, there are various reasons for replacing a hard drive, one of which is insufficient disk capacity. You can continue to use the old hard drive together with the new one, after reinstalling the operating system on the new drive and transferring all important data to it. Your old disk can still serve you long time. And if you don't plan to use it for storage important information or backing up your data, then you have nothing to fear.
By the way, you need to make sure that you do not find obvious signs of hard drive failure. You may need to run some disk maintenance tools that can predict and prevent potential hard drive failure.
As long as the old hard drive works well, there is no reason for you to get rid of it!
Your disk may not be completely corrupted!
So, you think your old hard drive is completely dead after a crash? If you have data stored on such a drive and want to recover it, then you should run a full drive diagnostic and see if it can be repaired before completely getting rid of it. Maybe the situation is not critical and you will be able to recover the data. If your hard drive shows certain signs of life, then try to immediately create backup your data. the right step will always fulfill backup data, regardless of the condition and age of the hard drive. Then you can be sure of the safety of your information. If the hard drive just didn't boot the operating system installed on it, but otherwise works fine, you can probably copy the data using relatively simple methods. For example, using "Linux Live CD/USB", which helps restore the data and health of the main operating system after a failure.
If you have reason to suspect that your hard drive has bad sectors and corrupted data, then you can try using a professional tool such as Hetman Partition Recovery, to recover your data.
The disk can still be useful!
Are you sure you don't want to use your old hard drive anymore? If it still works fine, there are many different and useful ways to use it for its intended purpose.
There are various options for using your old drive. For example, consider setting "RAID systems". "RAID" is a low cost redundant drive array that allows you to use a spare hard drive to mirror data from another drive.
Alternatively, you can set up a second operating system on it and share it on one personal computer. An old hard drive gives you the opportunity to work on another operating system without compromising the main hard drive.
Or turn it into your own media center. This is far from a complete list. options using an old working hard drive. Depending on your needs, you can independently decide on the further purpose of your disk.
The disk contains personal information!
You can simply sell or donate (donate) your old disk if you don't need it. It may not bother you, but you should be aware that your old drive contains a variety of personal information. And even if you do not plan to look for it there, then someone else can do it. Some attackers may search for your stored information in order to use it for their own selfish purposes. You have formatted your old hard drive and are sure that your stored data cannot be accessed. But, this is not the case, your data is still on the disk, and can be restored back with special software.
You must understand that this is a feature of the file system Windows. When deleting a file or formatting a disk, the system does not actually delete information, but marks this place as free for further recording and use! The only way to make sure that attackers can't recover your personal files is to overwrite them many times.
If the realization that someone can access your files makes you nervous and worried, then you will need to learn ways complete cleaning of your hard drive to permanently delete sensitive data. However, such methods are not a 100% guarantee of protecting your personal data from recovery and access to them by third parties.
If software can no longer access your hard drive, you can always physically destroy it to prevent any data recovery.
The disk must be recycled!
If your old hard drive is no longer functioning and cannot be used for other purposes, then it definitely needs to be recycled!
Electronics contains various types of precious materials, the extraction of which has consumed a huge amount of energy, possibly polluted the territory and caused significant damage to the environment. If you refuse to process and extract from electronic devices such materials, their extraction every year will increase environmental, social and economic damage.
To date, security environment and recycling of materials comes out, in importance, in the first place. Therefore, it becomes unreasonable to scatter expensive materials. You can also contribute to the conservation of natural resources by reducing their consumption and reducing the amount of waste you create. The last statement means that you should consider recycling your failed hard drive.
Conclusion: Old and broken hard drives are not automatically useless.
Whether your old hard drive is still working or not, it represents a certain amount of value. You can still recover your data from it, use it for your own use, sell or donate your drive, or a recycling company can extract rare metals from it. Either way, an old hard drive can be useful. And the worst thing you can do with your drive is smash it and just throw it in a landfill.
What did you do with your old hard drive? Or maybe you have other ways to use it? Please share your ideas and tips with us in the comments to expand your use cases for these discs.
Have you purchased a new, fast solid state drive (SSD) and your old one is lying around? Give him new task and use it as an external storage device. To do this, you only need a case with a SATA controller; it is available for both 2.5" and 3.5" models. For the latter, a power supply is required, while compact drives have enough power supply through the USB port.
Labor intensity: average, costs: 600 rubles.
Mini NAS on router
In all home network need access to the same data? To do this, you do not need expensive and bulky network attached storage (NAS) - this task can execute a USB drive if connected to your router. Newer devices are equipped with the corresponding port.
First you need to format the USB drive from under Windows OS in file system NTFS and then just connect it to the router. In this case, the latter must have USB port and it must support the appropriate functionality. Now, by typing the address 192.168.1.1 (or similar) in the address bar of the browser, you will be taken to user interface router.
Click the USB Settings | General access to storage device" (for TP-Link routers, for other devices, the name of the menu items may differ) and make sure that the disk starts up.
To access data on your home network, it will be enough in Windows Explorer to type an address like "\\192.168.1.1\Volume1". A permanent connection is achieved by right-clicking on the folder you plan to allow access to and selecting Map Network Drive.
Labor intensity: low, costs: no
Flash drive instead of a password
For a small USB flash drive, there is also practical use. For example, when you sign in to Windows, you can unlock your computer without entering a password. To do this, you need the Rohos Logon Key tool (1450 rubles), Predator (650 rubles) or free USBLogon (http://www.rohos.ru/products/rohos-logon-free/).
After installation, you need to select the connected USB drive and configure the security settings. After entering Windows password flash drive is ready to go. Unfortunately, working with USBLogon is complicated by the German-language interface, but even without knowledge of German, it is easy to figure it out.
Labor intensity: average, costs: no
flash drive for emergencies
If the computer no longer works as it should, help comes bootable usb flash drive. The Sardu tool (http://www.sarducd.it/) installs up to 20 different antivirus programs, and also provides various versions of Linux and other first aid software.
> Training: in the left sidebar, the selected software is listed by category. Check the required programs. We recommend choosing multiple antiviruses and a Linux version (e.g. Ubuntu).
> Flash drive creation: on the right sidebar, click on the symbol with the USB drive. You can start creating a bootable flash drive.
> Use in an emergency: to use a bootable flash drive in case of an "accident", you need to change the boot sequence from the drives to BIOS Setup.
In this case, you should set the boot priority from USB to HDD. Then choose from the list necessary program. Don't forget to revert your BIOS changes after "repairing" your computer.
A photo: manufacturing companies, racum/Flickr.com
In this publication, we will look at what can be made using an unnecessary old hard drive.
Neodymium magnets in the computer
First you need to unscrew a few screws that secure the body parts. Under the lid we see a neodymium magnet. Hard drives use very powerful magnets that are capable of lifting 1,300 times their own weight.
All modern drives always have two magnetic head block limiters and, accordingly, 2 neodymium magnets. To remove magnet 2, you need to unscrew another screw and remove it together with the holder or unscrew the block of magnetic heads first, and then pry it off with a screwdriver.
The applications of neodymium magnets are almost limitless. For clamps and clamps, toys and entertainment, cleaning engine and transmission oil, searching for treasures and lost iron objects underwater, making engines and generators, restoring the magnetic properties of other magnets and much, much more.
Mini emery from a hard drive
To do this, you first need to transfer the dimensions of the disk to sandpaper, it is convenient to do this with a compass. Fine-grained sandpaper should be used so as not to overload the engine too much. So, cut out the outer diameter with scissors and the inner diameter with a clerical knife.
Glue sandpaper where possible with glue. But in order not to wait for the glue to dry for a long time and so that you can easily change the sandpaper, you can use double-sided tape.
The emery is ready. We connect it to the connector from the computer power supply and use it. With its small dimensions, such an emery machine is quite powerful. Its power is enough to sharpen screwdrivers, pencils, chisels and cutter knives.
How to Eliminate PC Noise
Often, old computer cases are very noisy. One reason for this problem is the direct mounting of the hard drive to the PC case. When reading information, the disk develops tremendous speeds and, accordingly, a slight vibration appears, which is transmitted to the entire computer case. A small factory defect, poor soldering or a loose screw in the case cover will always remind you of this.
To fix this problem, we just need to cut 4 rubber strips. It could be old bike tubes, deflated baby balls, or a piece of silicone car mat. We fasten the ribbons to the hard drive and fasten it to a new place just below the DVD-ROM or even instead.
In general, an excellent result is obtained, since all vibrations are absorbed by the rubber bands. Also, this device can be called anti-shock. If you accidentally kick your PC, the hard drive will not be affected.
