Anatomy of a failed hard drive
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Failed Western Digital WD200 hard drive
Failed Western Digital WD200 hard drive
ntThe failed drive, after thousands of hours of tortured service. This poor disk ran everything from Windows 2K to Red Hat Linux, powered desktops and later test servers, and gave its life trying to birth a new Fedora Core installation.
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Screws removed
Screws removed
Eckel started by removing the screws, all requiring a proprietary bit to remove. Then he pealed back the protective stickers, voiding the (expired) warranty, to remove the last two screws.
Drilling out a stripped screw
Drilling out a stripped screw
One of the drive’s two remaining bolts refused to loosen. The head stripped in the process of extraction. The solution? A 3/8″ drill bit.
Removing the hard drive lid
Removing the hard drive lid
Once the screws were removed, the lid slid away to reveal the disk’s innards. No scalpel required.
Internal hard drive components
Internal hard drive components
Minus better tools, the dissection ends here. However, a precursory examination revealed no obvious failures: no dents, scratches, imperfections or foreign matter was present.
