Tearing down and scrapping out Hard Drives for gold, aluminum and other metals.

In this video I show how I teardown and scrapout old hard drives to recover the precious metals they contain. I show the internals of a variety of different hard drives, how to disassemble them and what is worth keeping. Please visit www.mdpub.com/T... for more information.

[@shaneyork300]

It's funny when you said you forgot your magnet when you have many inches from your hand!! 🤣🤣🤣 Have a Great Day My Friend!!!

[@zero-waste]

To make the dismantling faster, just line up all the Hard Disk Drives and heat the labels with a Heat Gun one by one. It's so easy to peel off the labels when they are hot. Without labels all "hidden" screws become visible. I process virtually every single part of Hard Disk Drives myself for recovery of all values. The platters are processed in a hypochlorite cell, recovering all metals (Nickel, Platinum, Cobalt, Tantalum, and other) from the coating without damaging the aluminium disk. All the small internal parts are processed in separate batches for recovery of Basic Metals as well as Precious Metals. Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) from HDs are valuable. Hydrometallurgical removal of the solder enables all components to fall off. All tin from the solder is recovered (worth four times more than copper). The electronic components are small, but very high quality. They are sorted and processed in separate batches, yielding PMs and Base Metals. Nothing is thrown away; every single bit of the HDDs is processed at home, with 100% of the values recovered. Even plastic parts/fibers are processed by pyrolysis. Silver and other metals is recovered from common CDs. They're made of Polycarbonate plastic covered with a metal coating.

[@sxndwich3395]

You should make videos on all this. Sounds like it'd be pretty cool to see

[@markysspotlight2472]

Appreciate the details you've given! I'm gonna start saving up scrap I've tossed a lot of hard drives over the years lol

[@WoozyMoose5150]

My first hard disk was a whopping 32MB. Great video!

[@bradlang9494]

That was great! I have got a few and had never pulled any apart before so was really good to see the internals, what to expect and the tools necessary to do the job. Thank you for the demonstration.

[@ScrappingIrish]

i love scrapping out hard drives but don't find as much as you do, great video

[@scrapman502]

Don't forget that a lot of the aluminum castings still have steel pins pressed into them. You might want to pull or press them out before taking them to your scrapyard. They have keen eyes, and most importantly a magnet, if they pull it out and start probing, you'll get paid less for your aluminum.

[@vicegrips188]

You have a full box of magnets 😆 thanks for the video ✌

[@unclebobsbees4899]

Thanks for the laugh. "Keep forgetting my magnet inside" while sitting next to 100 pairs. 😊 Great vid, thanks

[@SilverScorpion]

Great video

[@richardhulbert9480]

I have a few hundred waiting to scrap out. I took the boards of the one side but they always hide a screw under the label and they have a warning about voiding the warranty if I damage the sticker. How do you get the last screw out? I don't need any trouble. I still have the annoying tag on my mattress that says don't remove under penalty of law. Only had it 10 years now. Any way thanks.

[@maloumkanayaya2091]

Yes

[@drinventions9742]

I’m saying this for FUN... you’ve got a box of magnets beside you...🤣

[@drinventions9742]

The HardDrive platter is Aluminum plated with Nickel,, there is a video proving this,,, the glass platters? I don’t know... I messaged the guy to do a video on them but he is yet to respond, If I had to guess, I’d say it’s plated in Nickel as well,, and Not all readers have gold traces,, the low end models do not, high end models- you’ve got a 50/50 chance of it having the gold traces

[@mcbunjo]

There are usually about 10 mlcc to take from boards.

[@Hexbet]

I have about 2,000 brand new 2.5" Hard drives that have failed. These have less than 12 hours of runtime. But failed. They are all 320gb or larger. What might I do with these. They were pulled from brand new Lenovo laptops. They were never toss nor throne. I have looked up quite a few of them and for some reason I keep finding the back of the circuit boards for sale everywhere. I can't imagine they're worth fixing.

[@Sagittarius-A-Star]

"... older 10 GB drive ... " Well - when I started using my Atari the only available HD was 10 *MB*. It was unaffordable for me.

[@jbone877]

It's crazy how far things have come, eh? In such a short time. It's wild

[@haylonbrackin6214]

Great video Moose. Quick question, do take off the foil stickers off of the case before taking to scrap yard? I have about 600 3.5" drives to scrap and in the process of tearing them apart. I didn't know how particular the scrap yard is about the case being completely clean

[@omegageek64]

Moose is a different guy. My scrapyard isn't particular about stickers. Your mileage may vary.

[@haylonbrackin6214]

@@omegageek64 my bad. Great video omegageek64. I appreciate all of the help you and others offer!

[@kosarmahmood2841]

@@omegageek64 HiI want a watt sub hard drive number

[@lahorigoldsmith8570]

thats a fun doing that in covid

[@cheesynuts4291]

I wander if you could tell us how you arrange your pick ups? Posting ads for e waste pick ups? Working with computer repair shops?

[@metaldragonbraveheart]

I get a better price for atripped hard drives because cast aluminium pays better then sheet aluminum like the platters,

[@JimboScrapper]

I'm working on taking apart my hard drives, do you remove the plastic ends on the circuit boards?

[@jonglewongle3438]

1:20 - what you refer to as the forgings and lids, there is something to be said for that as the CLEAN cast or CLEAN extruded aluminium which they are. That is a worthy little scrap package. As for the steel ones, one could just as well donate those to the scrapyard, like, ' youse can have that ' in lieu of putting that in " the recycling ". Because " the recycling " means the transfer station and it means more material for those indifferent fools to have to sort through, magnet extraction notwithstanding.

[@kouroshmardokh2501]

دمت گرم رفیق بابته راهنمایت

[@Duddie82]

I had sold a desktop computer with a laptop hard drive before. It was a new drive and I need to make some money.

[@jonleone777]

Where do you find all these drives

[@espjason]

11 minutes in and he still hasnt started

[@reyrodriguezjr4776]

You said you started with computers in the 70s and ,80s ?

[@scrapman502]

What do you mean that you forgot your Magnet? Did you forget that your standing right next to an entire box full?

[@omegageek64]

Yeah, I did. LOL!

[@kosarmahmood2841]

@@omegageek64 Watt sub number please

[@davea5150]

Oh forgot it!!!

[@muriaticacid7004]

Thumbs Up

[@rickgividen4318]

They are coated with platinum. A hard drive drive read head leaves a magnetic charge on the platter as it spins. Aluminum is non-ferrous and can’t be magnetized. Platinum coating is added that actually holds the data. Hate to tell you, but until you destroy the platters, the data is still on them. A certified hard-drive destruction shreds the hard drive. I saw a YT on recovering platinum.

[@rickgividen4318]

Ok, read another post saying they are coated with nickel, makes sense.

[@jamessshep6106]

Warranty voided

[@BigBoyHolmesDK]

You forgot your magnet, why not use one of the harddrive magnets then. :)

[@williammiller7362]

I've got a ton of old salvaged hard drives stored up, and I haven't been able to tear them apart yet. In the back of my mind, I wonder if there are any of those lost or discarded Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies on the hard drives. Chance are slim, but that's why I've held off destroying them.

[@omegageek64]

Storage is cheap these days. You could copy the contents of the working drives off to the cloud, then dispose of the physical drives. You'd still need to find the time to comb through all that data. I suppose you could write a program to scan all the files for cryptocurrency wallets and such.

[@williammiller7362]

@@omegageek64 Good idea. I enjoy watching all of your videos. I know we are in kind of a different hobby. I get made fun of by my family and friends, but I don't care. I like the easy gold.

[@ducksonplays4190]

@@williammiller7362 A good amount of old hard drives like pre 2000 can be quite valuable and some can even sell for over a thousand USD.

[@williammiller7362]

@@ducksonplays4190 Thank you for the tip! I still haven't scrapped any of them. I'm still storing them up. I've got some really cool old ones too with all of the old legacy chips and such when the boards used to be loaded with good stuff. I'll check out prices on some of the older ones.

[@ducksonplays4190]

@@williammiller7362 Your welcome for the tip, some of those hard drives do sound interesting! I'm glad you might sell some since they are getting rarer by the year.

[@bhaskaranbass6399]

Universal uniti

[@beatingbasstv5211]

I have multiple old hard drives I am willing to sell to those who want to scrap them

[@reyrodriguezjr4776]

Hey I'll sell you hard drives for $2 each so you can strip it and make profit ??

[@reyrodriguezjr4776]

They're were no computers in the 70s lol were they computers in the 70s if so they must cost ALOT in those days ?

[@clairebell876]

there were computers in the 1950s so there would be computers in the 1970s

[@rickgividen4318]

Yes, Apple had computers, in a factory setting, we used them with a Bell board (I/O board) to make circuit board testers among other things.

[@saddamtechnologycenter9468]

❤️❤️❤️❤️🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

You sure do look down on people that DO have plenty of time and patience to get even the smaller bits and bobs scrapped and collecting even little bits of other metals besides steel, stainless, and aluminum. No help for me, at ALL.

[@jedidiahshilts7152]

Ya I'm with ya, Iv got to the point I'm saving every thing till I figure it all out , I'm thinking that sell mother boards by the pound is just flushing gold down the toilet