The Anatomy of the Hard Drive

The Oscot Team recently had to replace the hard drive on a newer Macbook. We “had” to replace because the user dropped this machine on its side and severely damaged the laptop and ruined the hard drive.

But since we don’t like to be wasteful we’re taking apart the 160 GB Western Digital hard drive and finding out what keeps our data so preciously intact.

Here you see the device with only the WD label peeled off. This allows us to see all of the screws that hold the top cover on. You will notice this has 8 screws on the top side that not only hold the cover on, but provide some type of support for the items inside the enclosure as well. All of the screws have been highlighted with red circles.

After removing the screws we can gently take the cover off to reveal what is inside.

Once open you now have a clear view of everything that stores all of your most precious moments. Can you believe all of your most prized digital possessions are held together with just a few different gadgets?!? Below we have labeled every piece to help everyone better understand.

You can see in this photo that the platter is such a finely finished surface that it is almost like a mirror. In the photo above you can see the reflection of the camera used and even some of the writing on the lens cover.

After removing the spindle and actuator axis screws you can easily disassemble the hard drive and remove all the components listed above and shown below.

These are the basics of a modern day laptop hard drive. For more information on hard drives, how they work and what makes them function you can turn to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_drive .

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