Open hard drive - how it works
You can reuse old hard drives for many hobby projects. To do this, you usually have to open the plate. We will show you which tool you need and how to proceed.
Open the hard drive yourself - this is how you have to proceed
When you open a hard drive, dust from the air enters the "clean room" of the hard drive. The device is no longer usable with this, so only open old or defective plates.
- Just like all hard drives are locked with Torx screws. In the WD hard disk shown in the picture, for example, there are seven Torx screws in bit size 9.
- On the other hand, if your hard drive is closed with rivets, it looks bad: Here you can hardly open the case with household products without major damage.
- Attention: Not all screws are always visible, there are often hidden screws behind the stickers (see picture gallery).
- When you have loosened all the screws, you can try to lift the lid. If this does not work, you have either overlooked a screw or the cover is additionally glued. In this case, you can insert a thin flat-blade screwdriver into the gap between the cover and the housing and carefully turn it around.
- You can find detailed instructions in our picture gallery:
In another practical tip, we will also show you what you can do if the USB connection of your external hard drive stops working. In another article, we show you the most important hard disk tools that everyone should know about.
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If you want to open a hard drive or many other technical devices, you usually need a screwdriver with different Torx attachments. You already get a complete set for [[//www.amazon.de/Hama-Schraubendreher-Magnetisbare-Kreuzschlitz-Lederoptik/dp/B000NRU88E/?tag=chiponline|unter 10 Euro]].
Here you can see the first six Torx screws from the housing cover, but one is missing ...
It is hidden under the lid sticker. Usually this is attached there for guarantee reasons.
Here you can see the opened hard drive. The read / write head is clearly visible in the middle and the plates are visible above.
