Reviving old hard drives

[Tony Duell]

> was enough to save the data.  On dismantling the drive I found that the
> grease on the platter spindle had gone rock hard with age - this happened
> to an old full-height drive in my AT too. 

One of my other interests (yes, I don't just hack old computers!) is old 
cameras, still and cine (movie) ones. Anyway, a few weeks back I got a 
Bolex 8mm cine camera, one of the faults of which was that the focussing 
mount on the 13mm lens was jammed solid.

And yes it was solid. I could not move it. Anyway, I took off all I could 
(aperture ring, focusing ring) and found the grease on the focussing 
mount had gone rock-hard. It was green in colour, and I could chip it off 
the metal parts with a screwdriver blade. Soaking it in propan-2-ol got 
it free enough to come apart with some force, whereupon I could chip off 
all the old grease. After regreasing it and putting it all back together 
(not forgetting to set the infinity focus point), it worked beautifully 
again.

-tony