Harddrives - what can be harvested - and what it contains ?

[Rag and Bone]

Protactinium (Pa)
"Due to its scarcity, high radioactivity, and toxicity, there are currently no uses for protactinium outside of basic scientific research."

Do you mean platinum? (Pt)

 

[patnor1011]

Protactinium (Pa)
"Due to its scarcity, high radioactivity, and toxicity, there are currently no uses for protactinium outside of basic scientific research."

Do you mean platinum? (Pt)

sorry my mistake... of course Pt.... my friend who run electronic recycling company used to give all hdd to man who paid him price for alluminium for them. when I have told him about disks inside that they may contain some valuable coating he opened few and xray them... he found out that they are made from nickel which is 4-5 times more valuable than alluminium and said that not a single one will go out :wink:

 

[Platdigger]

Are you sure about this? They are all made of nickel?

Sure it is not just nickel in the coating layer?

Along with cobalt and others.
Randy

 

[Platdigger]

Or, could it be that they are a nickel, aluminum alloy........

this could be interesting.
Randy

 

[patnor1011]

well we xray one and he said that disk is made from /dont remember exactly but will ring and ask about/ 95% of nickel. not alluminium... since that he said that he is opening them and taking discs off so i presume that they are from nickel mostly otherwise he will not be doing that... and ah since that time he likes me more... i dont blame him he is dealing with about 500-600 computers monthly...
thats why I am collecting them and hope that this year Ill have my xray to check them but if not i am going to his factory in summer for couple of days to get some more info... he quite likes me so he said to come for few days and he will show me everything... last time I saw there about 50kg of goldplated connectors, pins etc etc... I am trying to set up something simmillar in ireland but equipment is costly... f.e. that portable xray cost about 40k usd... other machinery like crushers, granulators too... god help me must choose some good numbers on tonights euromillions

 

[Gotrek]

Nickel wouldn't make sense it's magnetic. It would not work for data storage. It would defeat the purpose. You can't align magnetic particles on a surface if the surface is also magnetic.

It would have to be a non magnetic base with a dusting of magnetic particles. It may be aluminum platter with a nickel dusting.

 

[Scott2357]

There is some nickel in most late model drives but it's not in the platters.

 

[Gotrek]

Yes I was speaking for the platters themselves.

And I could be totally wrong. This is just reasoning from my head not actual documented facts.

 

[synthetiklone]

This I hope is the link to the analysis msg I posted for the mu metal magnetic plate shield holder.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=22950#22950

Also, the fine shiny metallic magnetically sensitive polarity-wise dust stuff that didnt dissolve in AR, was placed in a cupel, and heated to oxy acetelyne temp from under the crucible, it promptly evaporated, not melting together at all.
Some left in the test tube was accidentally on purpose rubbed across my finger, and by which it created a bright silvery coating, similar to paint, but thin. After promptly washing this out of my finger print due to worry over contamination of thyself with absolutely mysterious unknown and maybe toxic refined silvery strange substance, I am left pretty much in the dark.

Hmm.. cheers

SK

 

[GeeDub]

There is some nickel in most late model drives but it's not in the platters.

OK, let's try to clear up exactly what is in hard drive platters. Too much of this thread is devoted to "I think it's this" and "I guess It's that"

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/storage/im/index.html
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/performance_media_tp577.pdf

 

[lazersteve]

G,

I have a document by Fujitsu on my website that reflects the same data as the Hitachi site.


Here's the link:

Fujitsu HDD Data

Steve

 

[GeeDub]

I have a document by Fujitsu

Hi Steve,
Unfortunately i can never get to your website. I get an endless loop. I click "I agree", get to "enter site", and end up back at "I agree".

BTW the link you just posted is invalid. recovery is spelled wrong
-G

 

[lazersteve]

G,

I corrected the link.

I also tested my site and the log in worked fine the first time through at 11:00 PM CST . I clicked I agree and then the site page came up.

Check to make sure you are accepting cookies, allowing Active X scripting, and if using Firefox your have installed and configured my site with the IE Tab plug in.

Steve

 

[king_joolian]

These are the conclusions I have reached regarding hard drives. If anyone has actually purified anything of note from hard drives, feel free to post some disproving pictures.

Cobalt-Platinum-Chromium-Boron doesnt sound like platinum is close to being the main ingredient in the coating of the platters.
Isnt platinum non magnetic ... thus in the coating for an adhesion/durability reason, ie 1% of the coating?

Hitachi's documentation says they use a chromium layer with other layers ontop of that.
Could the shiny appearance of the platters come from this chromium layer and the others are so thin they are transparent, only tinting the colour darker?
Isnt platinum white-silver rather than dark-silver, making it extremely unlikely to be present in much of a quantity on the dark-silver platters?
The platters feel heavier than aluminimum though, maybe its alumaximum?

Anyone have access to a machine for making soft drink cans? $0.10 refund each around here, 1 hard drive could make 100 of them at least. $10 a drive! Now thats how you recycle, convert it into something government subsidised. Please note, this is probably illegal, or would be within a week.

I have to say that Hitachi wiped the floor with seagate in the actual information department.
Seagate was essentially marketing rubbish, hyping up their 'unique patented processes'... it was so irritating that Im never buying one of their drives again.
Now thats how you sell products!