Worst hard drive crash I've seen

[elitemrp]

Not bad.

Here's my similar drive crash from work back in 2006..

It was part of a RAID 1 array that had been degraded for a few months..

The server wasn't important so I just ignored it until one day when I had to reboot the server and it wouldn't boot with the drive installed.

I took it out and opened it and thats the damage I found. I still have it.

[nomis_nehc]

LOL, i was just gonna say that WOW Neowin can survive the digg effect.

[Viserov]

I clicked the link from Digg and was surprised to be on Neowin.

As far the hard drive, I'm sure you can just buff that out...

[rajputwarrior]

holy digg effect batman, that HD got destroyed

[Trommel]

Maybe it's the Bond version.

This message will self-destruct in .. ?

[tsutton]

And here's me thinking I've seen worst when I worked in ITS Hardware. But that's worse I've ever seen!

[neilgx]

I see this type of thing all the time at work. We actually researched why we were getting drives like this. Here is a crude explination, it was subjected to a jarring motion while powered off. This creates a small pit on the platter where the heads are parked and very slightly bends the heads. When you power up the drive, the head jumps when it gets to the pit, in turn creating another pit, and another, and another.... As the metallic dust builds up in the drive, it helps eat at the drive, like sandpaper. Eventually you get a pretty nasty groove, although I have never seen one that has eaten itself completely through the platter. Also the distance between the ridges in the groove and the resulting pattern in the dust is directly related to the speed of the platter. I wouldn't breathe or touch the dust in the drive. as it contains a lubricant for the heads. So the next time you are handling hard drives, treat them with respect, or they will turn out like this.

[purduephotog]

Not bad.

Here's my similar drive crash from work back in 2006..

...snip...

It was part of a RAID 1 array that had been degraded for a few months..

The server wasn't important so I just ignored it until one day when I had to reboot the server and it wouldn't boot with the drive installed.

I took it out and opened it and thats the damage I found. I still have it.

This is a very smooth cut. The original is a very rough, uneven cut- in fact it almost looks like it was ground down with a dremel. There are large broad strokes tha would apear to have been gouged out at one time...

Anyways, impressive nonetheless but I really don't like the uneven nature of the first one. The fact that the first drive was brought in in an unknown state, just 'found' to be that way with a valid security sticker says someone has been had with a nice practical joke.

[Glowstick]

Not bad.

Here's my similar drive crash from work back in 2006..

That's also an older drive, right?

I wonder what havoc a headcrash of epic proportions will cause inside the newer IBM/Hitachi drives, since they have platters made out of glass substrate.

[Phalesafe]

Wow the pics from both HDDs are fookin EPIC! :laugh:

[RickoT]

Wow in my 15 years in IT I have never seen an HDD crash like that before. That is just NUTS!, I would have loved to be there for the resulting explosion at the time the drive platters actually failed

[Invizibleyez]

Can you hook it back up and record the sounds it makes as it screams? I love the sound of cutting wood in the background. That must have sounded like a tablesaw cutting through a coffee can full of nails.

If you contact the manufacturer, maybe they will be interested in looking at it for you. I think the warranty is up though. By like 10 years.

[Marshalus Veteran]

This is a very smooth cut. The original is a very rough, uneven cut- in fact it almost looks like it was ground down with a dremel. There are large broad strokes tha would apear to have been gouged out at one time...

Anyways, impressive nonetheless but I really don't like the uneven nature of the first one. The fact that the first drive was brought in in an unknown state, just 'found' to be that way with a valid security sticker says someone has been had with a nice practical joke.

I'm not even going to try and argue with you to "prove" to you that the drive was not tampered with. I'll just say this, I stake my reputation as an IT professional and as a staff member of this site on it.

[javman]

I'm not even going to try and argue with you to "prove" to you that the drive was not tampered with. I'll just say this, I stake my reputation as an IT professional and as a staff member of this site on it.

ha ha i will

i took the pics and finished disassembly of the hard drive

this harddrive was out of a gateway e4200 at a college. it was either part of our defunct test domain or linux lab.

if we have obsenly old equipment or a damaged drive we pull the HD set it aside and get rid of the rest. (at one point i had a stack of 30 HDs behind my desk, i still have sevral old 286 5 1/4 hds some caviar 17000s and several 5-20 gig drives that have been sitting for 3+ years now from pcs we find in random closets).

my best guess is the drive failed over a vacation and sat there unnoticed for days then was removed and set aside. there was no indication of the amount of damage on the outside other than our other network admin said "shake this thing, it sounds like a plater came loose" to witch we replied "no way in hell" so we took the cover off and found what you see in the first pic.

the carbon filter was in tact and there was no sign of moisture intrusion. the ground down jagged edge is from it slipping under and over the center ring of the plater witch as you see in in the first and second pic is sticking out as far as the ground down edge. what you cant see is the marks left on the side of the plater where it was thrown around in the casing and bound up aginst the side. it ground the center section smooth and the outer to a sharp edge

the platers had no real damage other than the inside and outside edge and had a mirror finish after i wiped the aluminum dust off and are now hanging on the wall in my office

my bet is neilgx is right about what happend to cause it. you wouldn't belive how many time we walk into office where there is a bad noise or smell of burnt electronics and they say we ment to call you about that a few days ago but it is still working so we thought it was ok.

[elitemrp]

That's also an older drive, right?

I wonder what havoc a headcrash of epic proportions will cause inside the newer IBM/Hitachi drives, since they have platters made out of glass substrate.

It's a Quantum Viking II 3.5 Series PX09J011 SCSI drive. 9.1 GB. I forget how old it is, but the other drive in the RAID 1 array (same model drive) is still running in the server hehe

[Marshalus Veteran]

you wouldn't belive how many time we walk into office where there is a bad noise or smell of burnt electronics and they say we ment to call you about that a few days ago but it is still working so we thought it was ok.

So true. So very, very true.

[Abhishek kapoor]

BAD ..................R.I.P

[Murasame]

That thing looks like it imploded. :laugh:

[TheTempestSonata]

never seen anything like that.

[Pasukin]

I've seen something similar before. The hard drive in our CEO's PC crashed, making a scraping noise any time it was powered up. I pulled the drive apart out of curiosity and was amazed at what I found.

There were two platters in the drive, and at first glance they looked very odd. The mirror surface I expected to see was hazy. After touching the top platter I realized it was covered in a think layer of dust. I didn't take any photos of the tear down, but I saved the platters.

Blame the poor pictures on my camera phone and the poor lighting in my office.

The top of the first platter after being removed and wiped down. As you can see, it looks normal.

The opposite side of the top platter. It's obviously suffered from a failed head impacting the surface, and at first glance it just looks as though it's been scratched. That's not the case however...

The bottom platter, after being removed and wiped down. It's COMPLETELY CLEAR.

The heads on both sides of the bottom platter failed, impacting the surface while the drive continued to spin. This caused the heads to act like sand paper and completely removed the magnetic material on the platter, which was what also happened to the bottom of the top platter. The same material is gone and you're looking at the top layer, THROUGH the bottom of the platter. This also explained the dust that was coating every square inch of the the drive. It was the tiny bits of the magnetic material that was scraped off of the platters.

What I found odd was that the platters are actually made of glass. I had always thought they were metal.

[Echilon]

Wow. How old was the drive?