Recycling hard drives and more (is there a FreeGeek equivalent near White Rock?)

General lounge
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I have a lot of hard drives, 3.5" diskettes, some disk drives, and even some 5.25" diskettes to dispose of. Also, lots of tiny screws and other computer parts.

Hard drives: 5 or 6 trays holding 30? 40? drives each; I didn’t count them. I don’t even know what size they are. Maybe 40GB, maybe different capacities.

Does anybody know of a place near White Rock that will come and pick these items up? That’s where they are being stored.

I’ve emailed FreeGeek to ask if they can recommend a place, but if anyone else has ideas, I’d appreciate it.

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shows several locations for electronics in White Rock/Surrey

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Sorry, I missed the “will pick up” reference.

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If there is stuff that could actually be resold maybe the Hackery would make a trip. They have a vehicle that does pick ups on Wednesdays. Might only do it if they are making another White Rock pickup or may not do it at all.

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I think I’d pay for secure destruction of those drives and the media.

eg. in Surrey http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/services-for-government/bc-bid-resources/goods-and-services-catalogue/secure-electronic-media-destruction

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If it’s critical, then a simple hole through the plates with a drill should
do the trick :slight_smile:

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Heating past the curie point is the most foolproof.

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I’m a big fan of the ol’ drill a hole for sensitive data.

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There is a document storage company in Coquitlam, near the port mann bridge that will incinerate a banker box for $20. It can contain magnetic media such as tapes, floppy disks.

For hard drives, your best, and quickest bet is to use a drill press and just drill a hole thru the platter and then turn in the hard drives to a recycling depot.

However, if you have some free time while watching tv, if you remove the electronics, open the cases and take the drive platters out and the heads, you will end up with a cast aluminum box and lid, which you can return for $money$ at metal recyclers. I took a reusable bag full of cases and lids (about 30 pounds ) and got something like $20 (can’t remember the details as I was returning brass and copper waste too.

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That’s interesting. I’ve noticed people selling (or at least trying to sell) HDD motors on eBay, and in my experience older HDDs are much easier to get motors out of than newer ones. The older ones are often screwed in where the newer ones appear to be press-fit or something.

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Thanks for that information. I’ll see if my brother wants to spend the time dismantling hard drives.

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Hard drive music?

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The motors have bearings in them that are worth around a dollar, not to
mention a bit of copper.
Mostly worth it for scrappers.

Side note, I purchased 40 pounds of hard drive motors off eBay a few years
ago while slightly intoxicated, if anybody wants to buy some.

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Nothing that you can’t solve with a rubber mallet, a bolt (to use as a punch) and a sturdy work surface with a hole for the motor/bearings to fall through.

I have gotten quite good at it, tools needed are a torx 6, torx 8, philips #2, philips #1, large slotted screw driver ( about 4-6mm) to use as a pry bar. This will get you 90% of the way there. I call this the “TV” phase as I can do it while watching TV. You end up with a pile of PCBs, voice coils, kick ass magnets, a pile of shiny mirror-like discs, some precise machined aluminium spacers, a pile of rather heavy lids, some plastic/sticky labels/foam pad residue, and the hard drive case with the motor and spindle still attached. Once I have a pile of the hard drive cases, I take it to the hackspace, and spend a few minutes playing whack-a-motor.

Note about hard drive magnets: They are made of rare earth ceramics with a thin chrome coating. Once they are chipped or cracked, they become rather fragile, shattering easily into fine, very magnetic dust. You should not ingest or breath said dust. That’s why I recommend disposing of any rare earth magnets as soon as the chrome plating is damaged.

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