Off topic! Skip this post and move on!
I take those old spinning drives and disassemble them to recover the two powerful neodymium "supermagnets" inside.
CAUTION: Neodymium magnets are so powerful that they can pinch off skin or injure you when they come together. They are especially dangerous to children. Treat them as serious tools to use in the shop (great tool holders!) or for crafts and projects, or many other uses. To separate two of them, slide and rotate one until they repel or otherwise you can slide them apart. I keep a small container of them and pull one out as needed.
Data destruction of old hard drives: While I am at it, I separate the platters and either bend and scratch them with pliers or shatter them if they are glass to ensure good data destruction. (Important: Always wear eye protection for this kind of work.) Beware! Put each platter in a thick plastic bag before you "bend and scratch." The smaller drive platters look like metal, but they are brittle, dangerous glass. Flex them inside plastic bags to contain the microscopic shattered glass shards when they shatter.
To remove the arc-shaped flat magnets from their frames, do not try to pry them off. Instead, use pliers to bend and flex the ends frames away from the magnets. The magnets are brittle, and you will not get every one out of its frame without a loss or two.
(I should not have to say to keep those magnets far from your working drives and other old magnetic media. Check that magnetic media anyway - it probably deteriorated. Recover the data if it is important to you, before it is lost.)
(Edit, later: Deleted extra paragraph, a cut 'n' paste error. As stated, I will not be posting more of these, but this one needed correction.)
Last edited:
