11 ms·
Gooey rubber that's slowly ruining old hard drives
- fuzzfactor 2y agoChances are it's poyurethane. Low-density polyethylene would have been the better choice for longevity, but not so much for shock-absorbtion.
- userbinator 2y agoPU is definitely known for degrading like this over time. LDPE foam exists, but I think it wasn't common yet at that time.
- owenversteeg 2y agoWhy would you say PU rubber? ~30 years in an environment with some thermal cycling seems rather high for PU rubber.
- doctor_radium 2y agoI'm a bit surprised there was no mention of semiconductors (mostly capacitors?) going bad on 1990's hard drives. I want to rescue the Fast SCSI2 drive on my old Amiga at some point and never thought the problem might be inside. If the electronics on server-quality drives (it sounds like a jet engine) are this reliable, then I'll be thankful for having just one problem and not two.
- jimmaswell 2y agoHm, I have some classic scsi drives still kicking in some old Macintoshes, maybe I aught to back them up. They're funny, sometimes they get stuck and I have to whack them with the rubber side of a screwdriver to start them up.
- Panzer04 2y agoDo HDDs have many electrolytics? Those are the main culprits for going bad, and are usually used for power electronics, not controllers/processing circuitry (they don't need the bulk capacitance that you'd usually use an electrolytic for)
- dougg3 2y agoThere are indeed some aluminum electrolytics hiding on Quantum drives. They look sneakily like tantalum caps, but they're just cans hiding inside a plastic cover. Here's one where I accidentally broke the cover, revealing what's underneath: https://i.imgur.com/LdjUx3v.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/LdjUx3v.jpeg
- ComputerGuru 2y agoYou can’t convince me that’s not intentionally disguised like that.
- yborg 2y agoIt's more likely so these could be used with a pick and place machine. They're obviously lytics if you look at the ends. I don't know why everything has to be a conspiracy these days.
- mystified5016 2y agoNo reasonable EE would mistake this for anything but an electrolytic cap. This is a very old package design from the transition between through hole and SMD. The process for making the vertical axial style common now hadn't been perfected and it was briefly cheaper to cast regular axial caps into an epoxy block. No other component looks like this, it's a very distinct package and footprint from any other type of cap. No one tried to disguise anything, they really just thought this was the cheapest way to make a surface mount electrolytic cap.
- Panzer04 2y agoThat is cute as hell XD
- doctor_radium 2y agoI'd have to pull the drive to have a good look, but my memory is that the circuit board resembles the inside of a 1960's era transistor radio. Will hope you're right.
- coder543 2y ago> I'm a bit surprised there was no mention of semiconductors (mostly capacitors?) going bad on 1990's hard drives. I don’t think any kind of capacitor is a semiconductor.
- rzzzt 2y agoDons glasses well etymologically... the "semi-" in semiconductor means "partial", something between an insulator and a conductor. A capacitor is an insulator between two conductors. (But this approach fails on the temperature coefficient of resistance test: capacitor ESR increases with temperature while semiconductors have a negative coefficient.)
- dghlsakjg 2y agoCapacitors aren't semiconductors, they are just regular components. Semiconductors actually are pretty stable long term. The capacitors that go bad tend to be the electrolytic ones, and there aren't a lot of those on things like hard drives.
- Apreche 2y agoI had a 20MB external SCSI hard drive for my Mac Plus. I sold it a few years back. Still worked!
- MarkusWandel 2y agoThe 20MB era drives tended to have stepper motor actuators, not voice coil (in general). Probably not vulnerable to this particular failure mode.
- EndShell 2y agoThe "Adrian's Digital Basement 2" Channel took a "Plus+ Hardcard" drive and found something similar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMoEwTTFJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMoEwTTFJs
- rzzzt 2y agoColin from "This Does Not Compute" used the same Kapton tape fix on an Apple tablet prototype: https://youtu.be/OM64l8tZSwY?t=293 https://youtu.be/OM64l8tZSwY?t=293 I was wondering whether the flat tape makes some cylinders physically inaccessible but it seems like this is not an issue.
- qingcharles 2y agoWow, that was my first PC HDD. (I had a 10MB HDD in my Sirius 1 before that) Bought at an Egghead somewhere the Computer Museum in Boston while on vacation from the UK -- about half the price of something similar in England at the time due to exchange rate.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoRubber doesn't age well. I guess that we've all had some kind of gear that still works fine, but the rubber coating is all tacky and nasty, and leaves smears on your hand. I had to toss out a bunch of really good mice because of that.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoYou can use isopropyl alcohol to remove the sticky nasty rubber and at least make the thing usable again.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoTried that. Didn't work for me. Still sticky and messy, with the added benefit of adding schmutz from the cloth I used.
- snowwrestler 2y agoIt takes a lot of alcohol. I learned to soak a paper towel and rub it on the sticky stuff with almost no pressure. If it sticks, there is not enough alcohol. And change the paper towel frequently. It works by dissolving the sticky stuff, not mechanically wiping it off. So the paper towel picks up the dissolved crud after only a few wipes, then switch to a clean one. I’ve cleaned cameras, mice, umbrella handles, and the back of a Samsung tablet this way.
- MaKey 2y agoNext time give lighter fluid a try, that should work better.
- MaKey 2y agoTry lighter fluid, that should work better.
- arrowleaf 2y ago
- wileydragonfly 2y agoI too have fixed (temporarily) a hard drive by opening it open and moving the arm back and forth a few times. I got about 20 minutes out of it. Was able to save some photos… that are stored on another hard drive.
- acomjean 2y agoI had forgotten about Quantum hard drives.. I bought a Quantum harddrive in the 1990s for my mac like "Tower Power Pro".. It stopped working about a week after I got it with clicks. The first clue something was amiss was the person on the phone stating "thats a little early for it to fail". Got a replacement drive... 2 weeks later same issue. I think they were bought out by someone. As I get older I wonder how may of my burned DVDs will still work.. My MiniDiscs still do as of this fall when I dusted them off (different technology). I had heard of tv networks "baking " magnetic tapes to get the information off.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kstrauser 2y agoI bought a 50MB (yes, megs) Quantum HD from an acquaintance. It was freaking slow connected to my Amiga, like 20-30KB per second. It also made a horrible high-pitched whine. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I turned it over and squirted some 3-in-1 oil on the motor spindle. The whine started increasing in pitch as it quietened, and slowly the HD benchmark program started creeping up toward a more reasonable 1MB/s or so. I didn't use that drive afterward, and just copied the, ahem, public domain apps and games off it and then threw it away. I have not before or since sped up a computer by oiling it.
- klysm 2y agoI used to cynically think that things breaking down over time was mostly a choice for built-in obsolescence. After doing some real physical product design though, I can say that it's really difficult to build things to last.
- Aurornis 2y agoSpending time in a company that designs and manufactures real products will cure anyone of this conspiracy theory. There’s probably an exception for companies that don’t have any warranty and don’t have to suffer returns (e.g. the stuff you buy from Temu). Any company that has to build a reputation and suffer the economic consequences of warranty claims will not be doing anything to intentionally make their products break down over time. Once you’re close to the engineering side of physical products you also realize how hard it would be to make products that break down precisely after the warranty period is up. Most failure modes get spread out over a very long time (years/decades). Attempts at intentional obsolescence would start cutting into your warranty period very easily.
- NullPrefix 2y agoDo you think the fact that new cars have engines that are not rebuildable but only replaceable is just a coincidence? With every year car manufacturers get more insight in how and when things break, thus allowing the use of more plastic parts in the engine bay
- SR2Z 2y agoIt's not a coincidence - new cars have turbochargers and electronic engine control that provide huge performance/efficiency gains and necessarily are harder to repair. Your average shitty 4-banger from the 80s or 90s is not remotely comparable to a new engine - in almost every respect (including reliability!) the new one is better.
- NullPrefix 2y agoNew engines also have thin blocks, which cannot be honed
- userbinator 2y agobut older hard drives like the ones I’ve shown above are remarkably tolerant of being opened. That’s not to say I would leave it operating without the cover for an extended period of time, but for quick data recovery purposes in a decently clean environment, it’s fine. The airflow while the platters are spinning keeps dust off them, and as long as particles don't stick and cause excessive "thermal asperity", the heads will still work. The latter is what makes transient bad sectors appear.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoI had two hard drives sitting on the shelves just suddenly refuse to work after not touching them for years... Xbox360 hdd went south, a seagate st4000dm000 too. interesting... what is aging in these modernish drives that makes them go south?
- MBCook 2y agoCould be similar things. A rubber gasket going gooey, grease freezing up, anything to make the mechanics off even a little. The tolerances are so tiny, I doubt it takes much at all.
- tfvlrue 2y agoA similar thing happened to my Brother laser printer. It has a tiny rubber piece inside that serves as a bumper to quiet down a component that clicks while the paper travels through the printer. Over time, it gets sticky and winds up holding the component too long, which confuses the printer into thinking it has a paper jam, causing it to suddenly abort the print job partway through. The fix was to simply remove the rubber pad and it was back to normal -- albeit a little "clickier" than when it started! Details if anyone is curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/r04j3s/trying_to_fix_an_apparently_common_well_known/ https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/r04j3s/trying_to_...
- hlehmann 2y agoI had the same problem when my previous Brother printer was nearly ten years old, I did the same trick, and it worked. Most components might last almost forever, but things like rubber or glue, not so much.
- ernst_mulder 2y agoSame kind of problem with an old HP LaserJet 1300 we still use. It began by it occasionally picking up multiple sheets of paper and jamming. It gradually got worse until the printer wasn't usable anymore. The issue turned out to be the solenoid for the pick-up mechanism. When activated it should cause the pick-up mechanism to turn once. The solenoid once apparently had a small rubber pad to reduce noise. This had turned into goo and the solenoid would stick causing the mechanism to turn multiple times. Fixed by removing the left-over goo and a piece of tape. Ten minute fix.
- neilv 2y agoAnyone know whether this is the cause of the stiction problem in Quantum 105 drives in the early 1990s?
- mleo 2y agoI just found my old Flip Camera in bin of old electronics today and its rubber case was a sticky mess. In the bin is a bunch of old hard drives that haven't been touched in a decade as well. I imagine there is nothing on there I need that hasn't been transferred elsewhere, but also just curious if any of them work.
- billfor 2y agoI use a hairdryer to start my old scsi disk drives. I wonder if it loosens the rubber enough for the head to move.
- EarlKing 2y agoAhhh, Conner. My second computer (a 386sx-33) had a whopping two Conner IDE 120MB drives... until it didn't. I can remember the clicking as those drives would spin up... until one fine day the clicks died and POST threw an error wondering why my hard drive wasn't ready.... and then the drive began clicking again. One soft reset later and I was back in business, but even as a teen back then I knew that was a sign from PC-Hulud to immediately start pulling everything off. I had always assumed the problem was stiction of the read/write head w/r/t the platters. Neat.
- shrubble 2y agoI’ve recently got into old typewriters and have had the same problem with the rubbery belt that goes from the motor spindle to the larger wheel that spins the inner roller that drives the keys and returns the carriage. They turn into a very sticky goo, and those exact size belts are not available.
- emmelaich 2y agoVery interesting for me as I have a deceased friend's SCSI disk containing his novel in progress. Now to find a SCSI card and cable ...
- bpye 2y agoSome old Pentax SLRs have a similar issue [0]. I suspect there are many such examples, even in more modern electronics. [0] - https://www.flickr.com/groups/891454@N24/discuss/72157680498070935/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/891454@N24/discuss/72157680498...
- TwoFerMaggie 2y agoha! just thought of the same.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43240394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43240394
- fionaellie 2y agoThis reminds me of what happens to that rubberized coating that was so popular on plastic peripherals a long time ago. I have a relatively recent Ubiquiti AmpliFi device and it's just...sticky. I can't get rid of the stickiness no matter what I try.
- mikeodds 2y agoThis soft touch plastic is a plague of early 2000s cars too
- thescriptkiddie 2y agohaving flashbacks to scrubbing what must have been several square meters of the stuff off of the interior surfaces of a mk4 volkswagen golf
- MaKey 2y agoYou should be able to remove the stickiness with lighter fluid.
- mrspuratic 2y agoBy coincidence I found an old Toshiba external USB drive in a drawer last week when I was rummaging for a cable, a black STORE.E one with the (now sticky and nasty) rubberised coating. I just powered it up: happily it still works so I guess no internal rubber bumper. Worst application of rubber so far was on some old Stanley screwdrivers, now unusable unless you want to apply solvent to your hands after use. I got those maybe 15+ years ago, put me off Stanley branded tools. Now I have a perfectly good beech handled Wera set which (sigh) Wera appear to have stopped making.
- whitehexagon 2y agoI've thrown out an expensive chefs knife this week with a sticky rubber handle. Also two pairs of boots where the rubber bases have just crumbled. I contacted the manufacturer of one of them because they were a very expensive 'best pair' and had hardly ever been worn. The reply was that boots have to be worn every few months to prevent this, and not covered by warranty. I wonder if all polymers/plastics are like this, use it or lose it. Entropy rebooted.
- bayindirh 2y agoUnfortunately rubber deteriorates as it absorbs moisture. I forgot the name of the reaction, but keeping these things in a well ventilated, cool and dry place extends their life a lot.
- whitehexagon 2y agoMaybe hydrolosis, which doesn't sound particularly useful for hiking boots, especially with UK weather.
- robinsonb5 2y agoI've had good luck using bicarbonate of soda as a mild abrasive on knives and saucepan handles with that horrible rubberised soft-touch coating. On good quality items it removes the stickiness. On poor quality items it removes the soft-touch coating, which is still a good result in my book!
- indulona 2y ago[dead]
- stuaxo 2y agoInteresting. I have an old 80mb IDE from an ancient laptop that won't read, maybe this is happening. Before opening it I'm going to try it in an older desktop as it may be that it just doesn't like USB IDE enclosures.
- amatecha 2y agoHmmm, I wonder if there are similar tricks for newer hard drives. I have a 2010 iMac that has a seized or "otherwise non-booting" hard drive, just randomly wouldn't boot one day. I can only guess there is a mechanical problem like this, because those aluminum iMacs were notorious for running too hot internally and basically overheating the HDD. Same problem on my wife's 2008 iMac, that machine burned through 3+ HDDs due to the heat issue.
- amelius 2y agoThis is why I keep my drives in a helium chamber.
- TwoFerMaggie 2y agoThe most common issue with Pentax ME Super, one of the most popular consumer-grade manual focus SLRs, was caused by a degraded rubber ring near the mirror assembly. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Pentax+ME+Super+Mirror+Box+Service/176062 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Pentax+ME+Super+Mirror+Box+Serv... The ones without such an issue is still often recommended for hobbyists who want to get into analog photography today, because they are generally inexpensive, compatible with very nice lenses, and there are so many of them circulating still for parts and repair. Given that they were made in the late 70s to early 80s, and the shutter mechanism is fully controlled by electronics (instead of mechanical), it's quite amazing that the rest of the camera mostly held up over nearly 5 decades.
- pathartl 2y agoDidn't realize this was an issue! I must be one of the lucky ones
- adrian_b 2y agoMany years ago, I have lost valuable data stored on Sony QIC magnetic tapes (QIC = quarter-inch cartridge), because those magnetic tape cartridges contained a rubber belt that was used to move the magnetic tape inside the cartridges, when they were inserted in a tape drive. After many years of storage, the rubber belts had become fragile and any attempt to move the magnetic tape turned the belts into dust, making the cartridge unreadable. The LTO magnetic tape cartridges used today are much more robust, because the cartridge is simpler and it hopefully no longer includes any parts that are susceptible to rapid aging. At that time, i.e. 30-40 years ago, rubber belts were used because they ensured in a simple mechanical way a constant moving speed for the magnetic tape. Later, the electronic alternatives for ensuring a constant tape speed by varying the speed of an electric motor have become cheap enough to eliminate the need for such belts.
- threemux 2y agoMan this guy's posts are always awesome. The other place I've seen gooey rubber/plastic like this is on certain models of cars after many years of service. Sometimes even the steering wheel can have this effect which is gross
- millerm 2y agoIt seems that just about everything I have owned in the past 20 years that has had some sort of rubberized thing has turned into this goo. From knobs on digital music equipment, toys, coffee grinders... all of it. So very irritating.
- aequitas 2y agoI wonder if this is also the reason freezing a broken harddrive makes it temporary work again. I have used this trick a few times with success. Either keeping the disk in the freezer with the cable to the outside or putting a bottle or frozen liquid on top of it after it has been in the freezer (but beware of condensation).