Anatomy of a Hard Disk Drive

daRk_heLmet · Aug 7, 2005, 01:21 PM

We disassembled a hard drive to show you the main components you will find on a hard drive.

Hard drives have two kinds of components: internal and external. External components are located on a printed circuit board called logic board while internal components are located in a sealed chamber called HDA or Hard Drive Assembly.

You cannot open a hard drive or you will make your drive unusable. Hard drives are assembled in clean rooms (cleaner than surgery rooms) and then sealed. Any particle of dust inside the HDA can destroy the surface of the discs, because the discs spin at a very high speed (at least 5,400 rpm nowadays). This would not only lead to data loss, but also the physical destruction of the disc surface.

So, there is no serviceable part inside the HDA – at least for the regular technician. Only data recovery companies with clean rooms can open and replace components inside the HDA. On the other hand, the logic board can be replaced by any technician and this is one is a powerful procedure for recovering data from dead drives. We’ll post a tutorial on this subject in the future.

Anyway, before exploring the components located both the logic board and inside the HDA, let’s take a look on the connectors found on a regular hard drive.
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HDD guts spilt here: Hardware Secrets

BWX · Aug 7, 2005, 08:49 PM

Or you could make a speaker out of it.

http://driverheavenuploads.co.uk/BWX/HD-speaker.avi

Aug 7, 2005, 01:21 PM	#1
daRk_heLmet Keep firing, assholes! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Death Star Posts: 1,072 Rep Power: 0	Anatomy of a Hard Disk Drive We disassembled a hard drive to show you the main components you will find on a hard drive. Hard drives have two kinds of components: internal and external. External components are located on a printed circuit board called logic board while internal components are located in a sealed chamber called HDA or Hard Drive Assembly. You cannot open a hard drive or you will make your drive unusable. Hard drives are assembled in clean rooms (cleaner than surgery rooms) and then sealed. Any particle of dust inside the HDA can destroy the surface of the discs, because the discs spin at a very high speed (at least 5,400 rpm nowadays). This would not only lead to data loss, but also the physical destruction of the disc surface. So, there is no serviceable part inside the HDA – at least for the regular technician. Only data recovery companies with clean rooms can open and replace components inside the HDA. On the other hand, the logic board can be replaced by any technician and this is one is a powerful procedure for recovering data from dead drives. We’ll post a tutorial on this subject in the future. Anyway, before exploring the components located both the logic board and inside the HDA, let’s take a look on the connectors found on a regular hard drive. ________________________________ HDD guts spilt here: Hardware Secrets __________________ [color=white]My Blog[/color]

Aug 7, 2005, 08:49 PM	#2
BWX unplugged Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: USNY Posts: 19,665 Rep Power: 109 System Specs	Or you could make a speaker out of it. http://driverheavenuploads.co.uk/BWX/HD-speaker.avi __________________