# Hard Drives...Can Someone Break It Down For Me?



## austexdude (Nov 2, 2008)

Hi!

Ok...I suspect the outer casing of most hard drives is cast aluminum?

The platters are aluminum plated with platinum?

The arm, I also suspect aluminum?

Any other metals I should be aware of besides the gold pins on the connections?


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## silversaddle1 (Nov 2, 2008)

Yes, a lot of the covers and screws are stainless steel. Some types have brass counterweights in them too. Test everything with a magnet.


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## butcher (Nov 2, 2008)

check out magnets, and magnet coil wire, also the mylar flat cable ,and circuit board


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## Rag and Bone (Nov 2, 2008)

Hard drives are a jumble of all kinds of metal. They are great for scrap if you get all the right tools and find a rhythym. Brass, Al, stainless, boards, gold pins, flatpacks...


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## silversaddle1 (Nov 3, 2008)

We have about 3000 drives piled up around here. On slow or rainy days, I'll go out to the shop, hook up the I-pod, and start scrapping drives. If you do have a bunch to scrap, try to sort them out by model or manufacture. As you will learn, all have different ways to build the same thing. Once you take one apart, it's easier to take the next one apart, and so on. Once you get all one style scrapped, learn the next style. If you have a "Do It Best" hardware store around, they sell a little Torx driver set that is tops for scrapping drives. I think they go from size 6 up to size 10. They will do just about any drive you come across. Super handy. One other thing. If you don't feel like it's worth the time to strip the readers, you can save them along with the motor, and sell them as breakage AL.


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## viacin (Nov 3, 2008)

The magnets have a small nitch market as well. You can sell them to DIY types on ebay.


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## butcher (Nov 4, 2008)

the magnets are also great in prospecting for gold, and cleanup of black sand,and testing your junkyard metals, seperating the ferrous metal prior to disolving , magnetizing other tools,ect


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## Oz (Nov 4, 2008)

Often magnetic black sands are not barren of gold.


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## butcher (Nov 5, 2008)

magnet to seperate visible gold from black sands (magnetit and hemitite) the concentrated heavy portion left after panning the black sands can be roasted to drive sulfides from iron , ground fine, then processed in acids to recover a small amount of gold (not worth it till you get a 55 gallon drum of the heaviest concentrates, use magnet in plastic bag or cup ect so black sand can be released from magnet easily. some areas the black sands can also have PGM's


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