The Hard Drive is Dead, Long Live the Hard Drive
My main PC, bought early 2006, was specced to play Oblivion with a fast 40GB SATA hard drive as its primary drive and an older 80GB Westen Digital “Caviar” IDE hard drive repurposed from the PC it replaced as a secondary drive - because 40GB just wasn’t enough. Earlier this year, the 80GB drive died. Thankfully it showed symptoms first, and held out long enough for me to retrieve the data I had on it…
Anyway, owing to wanting to dispose of it properly - or just because I am a collector of junk computer components - I haven’t yet gotten rid of it. Today, that foresight (read luck) paid off - and it isn’t the first time. So here are two ways to get some extra miles out of your dead hardware!
- Hammer - recently I had to put together some IKEA shelves that required, of all things, a hammer - and it was the one tool IKEA didn’t provide. I don’t have a hammer, but the hard metal casing and heft of the hard drive proved up to the task. Watch out for the screw holes though. Also, I have noticed some indentation on the case - so I don’t think it will be a replacement hammer indefinately…
- DVD unlocking device - Lou received a Christmas gift from her friend Kim in Australia, the “Iron Man” DVD. Unfortunately, the store magnetic lock had not been disabled. A quick search on the Internet provided some handy instructions involving hard drive magnets. I have since placed the magnets on our “munitions” cabinet, converting its gothic charm to a more steampunk one (and keeping them away from sensitive electronic devices)
What uses have you found for old hard drives?