6 Mar
2014
6 Mar
'14
7:54 p.m.
On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 11:41 AM, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
<<In fact, a while back, I fixed an MFM hard
drive from an IBM PC/AT in
the cleanroom. Completely dismantled the platters from the spindle, put it
back together, and got several more months of service out of it, until it
wouldn't spin up on its own (had to kick-start it). >>
Kyle, that's really neat. Would you tell more about how you got the
platters out? Were you able to lift the heads off the platters before
retracting them, or were you simply able to slide the heads across the
platters, and off the platters?
I undid the few screws holding the arm assembly in place, and was able to
rotate it a little further until the heads came off the platters, no
lifting of the heads. Unfortunately, one of the heads came unglued. A dab
of superglue later, and I was back in business. Had I lifted the heads, I
imagine the one head wouldn't have broken off.
The platters were taken apart by means of the few screws on the spindle
assembly. Each one was gently cleaned with isopropanol and deionized water
and dried with nitrogen.
The stack was reassembled and mounted. Then came the tricky part: putting
the heads back on. For this, I found that the locking end of some large zip
ties were at the right height to spread the heads apart. I cut up some zip
ties, put the ends acting as plastic spacers in between each pair of heads,
and gently coaxed them back onto the platters. The goal was to let all of
the spacers get pushed out by the edge of the platter at roughly the same
time. The heads went on without a problem. I bolted it all back in place,
closed it up, took it home, and low-level formatted it. It completed
normally and only found a few bad sectors and marked them accordingly.
Kyle