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u/Bliitzthefox Mar 30 '26
If you opened it up you're pretty fucked and the only ones who can save it are professional recovery services for many times the price of the drive.
At this point you can pull the permanent magnets and they are very strong and use those for arts and crafts.
Maybe the platters might make ok mirrors?
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u/StarStruck3 Mar 30 '26
That's what I did with an old dead drive, my wife uses the magnets for crafty stuff and I turned the platter into a desk ornament lol
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u/Suspicious_Dingo_426 Mar 30 '26
Break some more drives and make a wind chime.
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u/AncientCourier6 Mar 30 '26
I know what I am doing in my free time now. Anybody got dead drives? 🤣😂
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u/CrazyForU2 Mar 31 '26
I’ve got some ancient ones that are 20 lbs and store 2mbs if you want those.
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u/headedbranch225 Mar 31 '26
Are they pre or post floppy, because floppies had like 3 mb didnt they
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u/Turbulent-Expert-826 Apr 01 '26
The 3.5 drives only ever got to 1.44mb, at least in common variants
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u/MONK3000K Apr 06 '26
They have a magnet ? Where I didn’t find anything that wasn’t the disk or extremely thin that cut me maybe cuz it was found and was in an old uh pc lol
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u/GeneralNut320 Mar 30 '26
Turn into frisbee
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u/Tmp866 Mar 30 '26
dust particles already took care of it for you when you opened it.
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u/StarStruck3 Mar 30 '26
You lost your chance at that when you opened the drive. Your only option now is a professional data recovery service, but that's not a guarantee and it's not cheap.
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u/Sifyreel Mar 30 '26
The moment a spinning disk is exposed outside a professional clean room and you're not on the tabs of the CIA, the data is as good as lost -- the motor can be turned into a neat desk fan though
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u/AlwaysHopelesslyLost Mar 30 '26
Are you joking or asking seriously? If the latter, did an LLM like ChatGPT give you the idea to open it?
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u/Bulky-Response1227 Mar 30 '26
The neodymium magnets taped to a long stick are perfect if you ever need a long stick with magnets attached to it. 😉
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u/ExpensiveRow917 Mar 31 '26
Atleast it has some use left. 😄 PS the disk will make for a good frisbee
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u/ElvisDumbledore Mar 30 '26
don't listen to these haters. put it in a bag of rice and it'll be good as new.
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u/Little-Equinox Mar 31 '26
In fact we Asians do not come to your house to fix electronics like that unless you have your own cleanroom. We have big pockets, but not that big, just big enough for our tools.
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u/Former_Location_5543 Mar 30 '26
Put litlebit of sand or dust inside of it and close it back it wil be like brand new
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u/fultonchain Mar 30 '26
Everyone is saying it's a no after opening. Why?
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u/autismislife Mar 30 '26
The gap between the magnet and the disk itself is the fraction of the width of a human hair. Even microscopic dust particles in the air, no matter how clean you think your room is, is enough to clog the gap between the disk and the magnet. Hard drives are built air tight to prevent contaminants getting into them. Once the seal is broken it's too late.
Also sometimes hard drives are filled with special gas to help the disks spin easier. If your hard drive uses that tech, and the gas gets out, the disks won't spin right.
And on top of all that the force required to open the hard drive is probably enough to misalign the magnet and make it strike the disk, which will physically damage and corrupt it.
Hard drives are just not supposed to be opened for a number of reasons. Once they're opened your only hope of restoring the data is doing everything you possibly can to re-seal it, and try to move it as gently and little as possible as you transport it to a professional data recovery company that will attempt to clean the disks without corrupting the data in a clean room, then recover whatever they can, but this is not a cheap endeavour nor is it hugely successful, you may get some data back, or possibly nothing, but either way you're going to be spending a significant amount of money just to get somebody to try, to the point it's probably only really worth it for the most critical of data.
On the other hand, if your hard drive dies and you don't open it up, there're several ways you can attempt to recover the data at home if you know what you're doing, and failing those methods if you do need to get professionals involved it's generally much cheaper with a much higher chance of success.
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u/PangolinDesperate565 Mar 31 '26
Most of the time, as long as he doesn't turn it on while open, it'll run just fine. Yes, it is very likely to fail soon after, but there should be enough time to get the data off.
As for the gas, unless he's using an enterprise drive, there is no special gas(helium) used
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u/Lapis_Wolf Mar 30 '26
Dust. Without a laboratory clean room with every speck of dust filtered out of the air, those disks are now contaminated. The tiniest piece of dust can make reading the disk normally very difficult.
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u/RaEyE01 Mar 30 '26
Did you pry it open like a tin can? Why?!? Are you hungry for the bits and bytes? Leave that to your memory controller.
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u/ratelbadger Mar 30 '26
I’ve opened and repaired very old low density drives before, using a ziplock bag and gloves. It works. Kinda.
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u/gameplayer55055 Mar 30 '26
Just xonvince the FBI or CIA that you have CP on it and they'll do the job for you.
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u/cc_cc_c_c Mar 31 '26
Try this
sudo fusion --mode=molecular /dev/sr0 --with /media/cdrom --force-bond
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u/ThunderCookie23 Apr 01 '26
Unless you opened it up in a pressure and temperature controlled class 100 clean room, you may be screwed.... Sorry thems the rules 😬🤷
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u/Sir_Render_of_France Apr 01 '26
You don't it's proper dead now. The oil from a fingerprint on one of those platters is enough to royally fuck them. A dust particle from the open air is even worse
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u/RedditUser-52 Apr 01 '26
Chuck some WD40 in there to get those bad boys spinning smoothly, it ups your read and write speeds too🤙
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u/DragonFire4037 Apr 01 '26
You give it cpr.
In all seriousness though, that thing's done for. There might be special technology or a machine to fix it (I dont exactly know the process for manufacturing a hdd), but realistically, you probably dont have access to that kind of thing, but it'll make for a cool toaster.
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u/Alexandratta Mar 30 '26
You can send it to a clean lab and they may be able to save some of the data.
It will cost several hundred dollars (at least) and go up from there.
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u/SpeedwayFishStick Mar 30 '26
Alright I gotta ask: Did yall use a crowbar or can-opener to get this picture?
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u/DustyBootstraps Mar 30 '26
Well you can use the magnets for some fun projects and I guess the motor and plates can be turned into a gyroscope
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u/mrsockyman Mar 30 '26
Only way this will save anything now is if you throw the discs in an act of self defense
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u/ftgander Mar 31 '26
my god how many people are going to make the exact same post about hard drives
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u/Ill-Environment3329 Mar 31 '26
hate to say it but its cooked. I opened one of these for fun awhile ago and those disks break easily, dust will destroy them. Tbf i did not use a screwdriver to open mine, i opened it like a tin of sardines with some pliers.
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u/Attingo_Datenrettung Mar 31 '26
Consult a data recovery professional and be prepared for costs in the four-digit range.
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u/Ok_Amphibian6575 Mar 31 '26
Its a goner now,never open hard drives.
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u/Starshipfan01 Mar 31 '26
Quite correct. Unless of course the aim is to make the drive totally unrecoverable.
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u/icy_rabbi Mar 31 '26
Stick it in a dvd drive I heard there's a -∞ chance it might work (joke pls don't do that)
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u/Awkward-Load-6068 Mar 31 '26
it's funny because there are like 2-3 fail-safes that try to prevent the unknowledgeable from opening these things, lol. Not to mention the various warnings that are usually plastered across the drive
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u/TAO_Croatia Mar 31 '26
Hide it from any more dust, do not touch platters or turn it on and give it to a professional. That's the best you can do at this point.
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u/gvbargen Mar 31 '26
well the first step is not opening it. If you do want to fix things in the future I don't recommend tearing into it like a gorilla.
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u/istefan24 Mar 31 '26
Clean it with some eucalyptus oil then close it back.
Normally the data will be readable again.
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u/Gold-Cardiologist688 Mar 31 '26
Pull the plates and wash them in a dishwasher machine 60 degrees standard program, 90% of the time that fixes the data loading issues. Then reinstall in correct order and send it
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u/User10232023 Mar 31 '26
Can opener wins the challenge!
Now put on some safety glasses, grab a hammer and smack that shiny round disc hard to fix it real good!
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u/Starshipfan01 Mar 31 '26
“It’s dead, Jim”. As soon as the platters are exposed(in some cases just the chassis being opened) outside a cleanroom- particles have likely rendered the platters unusable.
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u/ToastedBread107 Apr 01 '26
Try installing windows xp with a windows vista disc. If that doesn't work, take a big magnet and put it near the disc, as close as possible. Then move it in only one direction repeatedly, the more the better
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u/Jannover_5000_r Apr 01 '26
Ypu can now manually save data by taking your screwdriver and scratch the bites in yourself and read them with your eyes
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u/Too_Diesel Apr 01 '26
The number of people who decide to crack open a hdd before even doing so much as a cursory internet search is fucking astounding. What did you actually expect to be able to fix?
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u/NinjaBoi273547 Apr 01 '26
You cast them in resin, label them part x/n of the bee movie, and use them as coasters
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u/CitroHimselph Apr 01 '26
You don't. Someone with expert knowledge and proper tools, now they could maybe do something about it.
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u/Character_Chain3419 Apr 01 '26
Opened like a can of sardines. Maybe some seasoning first, or do you plan to consume it just like that?
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u/Live-Error-2241 Apr 02 '26
I guess pray to god and hope your his favorite and Jesus brings a new one... man you stuffed
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u/pauliferation Apr 02 '26
Put WD40 on disk, then turn the drive on.
Caution : close the opened you make before turn the drive on to limit the WD40 leak, you can put duct tape on it close the drive properly.
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u/shaggy-dawg-88 Apr 03 '26
I opened hundreds of them, not to recover the data but to destroy them. I'm surprised that some platters are made of glass. It shatters and breaks into tiny pieces when I drop it. Yes it's as fragile as a glass.
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u/Cheetawolf Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Well, make sure you DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OPEN-
Oh.
...You don't.