Hard Drive dis-assembly questions... rrrrgg...

If it's the kind I think it is...I smack it with hammer. I'll have to go look at some I have down in the shop an see if any are like the one in your picture. I've had them in the past, an have gotten them off. It was either with a hammer, a flat head in to the hole, or some other way I'm not remembering. I don't see a lot like yours but now an then I do.

Can't help you with the little copper things. They annoy me to much to mess with.

Good luck an let us know if you find a way that works for you.

Sirscrapalot - Hard to remove thing, meet my friend..the big freaking hammer.

All-

Thanks for your comments!

In the first case, where the spindle motor coils remain stuck to the chassis and don't come off with the rest of the motor, it occurred to me that maybe I'm using too small of a punch on the back side. If I used a broader punch, a very large flat head screwdriver say, I'd have a better chance of punching out the coils as well, though I'm sure some of the chassis will come with them.

But this gets to billygoats' point- why remove the spindle motor in the first place? Well, it depends... It is true that my local yard pays more for cast aluminum than motors, so maybe it's better to leave them on... unless they decide to downgrade the whole piece (motor + chassis) to aluminum breakage, in which case it probably is a net loss of value. I've been removing the spindle motors in anticipation of selling them on Ebay... but if a chunk of chassis comes with them, well, this may defeat the purpose. I thought about setting up a little decision making flow chart showing the various outcomes and potential values but the heck with it- I've got other things I need to do today.

As for the non-screw retainer ring or cap... well, a hammer + pokey thing in one of the holes is always an option and one that I'll probably resort to. I'd rather not accidentally smash the platter(s) (those sell on Ebay or Etsy as well) or bung up the rings themselves (again, those can sell for more than Al as well) but the world is an imperfect place.

Here's a picture of the back of the second drive (the one with the annoying retainer). It looks like it'll pop out cleanly once I get the retainer off and the platter out.

Cheers,
tbg

PS: Did anyone catch the ant in one of the pictures? Entomology, man!

Well, this morning I tried out using a larger punch (in this case a 3/8" flat head screw driver) to pop out those non-screw-able spindle motors from their chassis (placed upside down on a stripped chassis as per Mechainc688's suggestion) and.... success! Here's a picture of the scalps I collected. Not exactly elegant, but three or four taps gets the job done- sweet! The bottom two chassis had stripped screws holding in the actuator arm but, with a smaller flat head screw driver as a punch- "pop" out they came!

I spent some time with the non-screw-able retainer rings as well but I could *not* get the darn things off. I even managed to pop the spindle, platter, and rings out in one piece but I still could not get the rings and platter off the spindle. Obviously I should use a bigger hammer tomorrow...

Cheers,
tbg