Reviving old hard drives - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

30 Dec 2004

I've talked to the engineers at DMA Systems (removeable HD mfg that was
bought out by Ricoh?) and they indicated they would test run their
drives with no cover (in an open room, not a clean room.) The caveat was
to not be in a dusty or dirty environment. I've done what Jules mentions
and it works well! I did that on a HD just to see what would happen ...
nothing, and it worked fine for another couple of years after I put the
cover back on. There is usually a filter inside the (older?) disk drives
and I *think* it will clean out any dust that got in the drive while the
cover was off.

...
  Jules Richardson wrote:

 Another bonus last-resort trick is to pull the lid on the drive and get
 the platters spinning 'by hand' - just don't touch the data surfaces,
 and there's no guarantee as to how long the drive will keep going (don't
 run the drive open obviously - in fact some drives won't even run up to
 speed when open). Copy data off, then chuck the drive. Someone told me
 of a drive they ran completely open for a couple of weeks for giggles
 before it finally crashed. 