24 Mar
2023
24 Mar
'23
6:58 p.m.
Well the data are still there and could be retrieved with a sophisticated servo on data
system and/or a probe head on the data surfaces.
Simpler to hit the spindle motor top dead center with a very large hammer ruining the
bearings and crashing a few heads in the process.
Even then the data are still there so nothing beats a multi-pass full disk wipe
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Zach [mailto:cz@beaker.crystel.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2023 9:53 AM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: [cctalk] Re: Nuking an MFM drive with a magnet, format/servo gone?
Speaking from experience with an old RD54, yep. Put a magnet on the outside case towards
the bottom, spin the drive up and it's gone forever.
On 3/23/2023 12:22 PM, Daniel Daigle via cctalk wrote:
Old MFM/RLL drives with stepper positioners generally
have no servo.
The same can't be said of voice-coil positioned drives; they could use
any means, including hardware optical servos, etc. but often used a
surface and a head for that purpose... so yes, you can render one of
these drives useless with a magnet if yours has a servo surface. (This
is not the same as embedded servo, which places servo information
-with- the data on the same surfaces.)