Build a magnetic parts tray out of an old, dead hard drive!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,264 words · ~6 min read
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one of the most helpful but least possessed and least used things for
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people building computers is a magnetic Parts tray one of the most abundant
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things in the computer's world are dead hard drives this is actually an equation
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that we can
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solve cooler Masters new master keys Pro L and PR s keyboards feature 16.7
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description we build computers all the time that's kind of like literally our
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job one of the downsides to this is having a huge amount of Hardware boxes
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for Hardware that are missing screws because someone was careless and didn't
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keep track of them properly okay to be fair in most cases that was probably me
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because of that the three sides of my personality are all in unanimous favor
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of lonus who grabbed a load of magnet Parts trays in the past he even featured
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them in a handy Tech under 100 episode 3 which you can check out up here these
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were great but he bought them when we worked in a house and had a company of
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about six people now we work in a big office and employ like 13 people I
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actually have no idea does that make me a bad manager probably that's fair what
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it doesn't do is ruin my passion for honestly just screwing around with
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hardware and today's victim was well you guessed it the hard drive and what will
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my dead hard drive sacrificial body be used for in the absence of its ability
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to hold memories well we're going to tear the thing apart carefully actually
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and then we're going to extract some neodymium magnets to make our own Parts
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trays with well to be honest some tape
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and any random object we can actually get our hands on you're going to need a
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small torque screwdriver the size of which will be determined by the hard
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drive that you have I recommend getting some form of Kit because just scrapping
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four different hard drives I ran into two different sizes of screws I would
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also recommend that you get a flathead screwdriver or a pry bar to pry the top
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off and now that that's out of the way here we go unscrew all the visible
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screws on the top and then try to find the sneaky decky screws they decided to
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hind under stickers or the drive information sheet once you're done
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removing all of these pry the top of the freaking hard drive off now that you're
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on the inside you can start by removing the first magnetic plate you're going to
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have to pry it off it's very unlikely that there will be any screws attached
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to this next up you can move on to the actuator or the platters depending on
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whichever's easiest for you this can be a little frustrating as there's tons of
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little screws and different things overlapping each other but it won't take
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all that long and once you're done removing all of that it's time to work
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out the bottom magnet which should just be a couple screws and some prying away
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from Freedom now for today's video we're going to be using the magnets so we're
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definitely going to keep those but if you have a lot of hard drives especially
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you should consider selling their individual components for scrap
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especially the metals inside of the hard drive and the PCB that's on the bottom
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of the drive they can all be sold not for a ton of money mind you but if you
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have a lot of drives with a little bit of time you can turn a profit check out
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boardsort.com if you're interested in that alas our magnets have been
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retrieved and we're ready to start making our magnetic Parts trays the more
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magnets you get the larger the surface area you can effectively use use as a
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magnetics Parts tray also naturally the
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creation of these parts trays will come down to your creativity but some of my
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favorite ones that I made in the office were the stealth which is a hard drive
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that is actually a magnetic part Str you just take all the guts out put the
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magnets on the bottom of the lid tape them on and then screw everything back
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together so it looks like a hard drive I know I'm kind of weird don't worry about
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it another one was the more practical repurposed box which originally had a
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space pen in it I just tap the magnets to the bottom of the outside of the box
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this one has the added practicality of being able to be magnetically stuck to
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other metals like a normal magnetic Parts tray and last but not least is
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taking a piece of cardboard drawing out a grid with like a Sharpie or something
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and then taping the magnets in a grid formation in order to create a magnetic
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sorting pad sick is this remotely useful
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at all I think so but what do I know you
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tell me hit me up on Twitter Luke LFR and let me know if you've met made one
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that's what other the reason do you need