Reviving old hard drives

[Brad Parker]

"Joe R." wrote:
...
>slide (or rotate) just as easily. I've looked at a couple of drive platters
>that had sticktion problems and there definitely seems to be wax or
>something holding the heads to the platters.

I think almost all 3 1/2" drive media has some sort of coating on it.
What it is varies over time and mfg.  I remember that most of it had
'lubrication like' properties - it's been a long time however and I may
be slightly off.

I seem to recall the magnetic coating was sputtered on and then another
coating was put on top.  As I remember sometimes the top coating would
pool around the heads after they landed.

but it's all a dim memory and my memories are probably very dated these
days since the density has gone up by factor of 1000.

I do remember walking through Tony Lapine's labs and watching watching
drives running inside laminar flow hoods :-)  head balistics where the
order of the day and made for some interesting firmware.

-brad