...making Linux just a little more fun!

### wanna learn about hard disk internals the virtual way?

Mulyadi Santosa [mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com]

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 22:54:21 +0700

Sometimes, people are scared to get a screw driver and check what's inside the hard drive. Or maybe simply because we're too lazy to read manuals.

So, what's the alternative? How about a simple flash based tutorial? http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/e[...]-first-online-hard-disk-drive-simulator/

It's geared toward disaster recovery, but in my opinion it's still valuable for anyone who would like to see how the hardware works.

PS: Thanks to PC Magazine which tells a short intro about the company: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361120,00.asp

-- regards,

Mulyadi Santosa Freelance Linux trainer and consultant

blog: the-hydra.blogspot.com training: mulyaditraining.blogspot.com

Top Back

Ben Okopnik [ben at okopnik.com]

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 12:33:43 -0400

On Sat, Sep 04, 2010 at 10:54:21PM +0700, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:

    > Sometimes, people are scared to get a screw driver and check what's
    > inside the hard drive. Or maybe simply because we're too lazy to read
    > manuals.
    >
    > So, what's the alternative? How about a simple flash based tutorial?
    > http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/e[...]-first-online-hard-disk-drive-simulator/
    >
    > It's geared toward disaster recovery, but in my opinion it's still
    > valuable for anyone who would like to see how the hardware works.

Y'know, I sent this to the Answer Gang years ago (back in the linuxgazette.com days), but searching for it at LG doesn't turn up anything. Hence, here's a great hard drive story - made all the more pointed by the "here's what a speck of dust on a drive platter will do" demo from the above link. Enjoy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Just read a short story from a Russian mailing list I'm on... this should go right along with Mike's "Foolish Things" article, but kinda-sorta in the opposite direction. So to speak.

Yankee ingenuity doesn't even come close. Perhaps for fear of contagion.

(Translated by Ben Okopnik)

Back around the beginning of the Nineties, I ended up in Singapore, on business. Mostly having to do with buying hard drives, but keeping an eye out for small electronic gadgets as well.

Eventually, I found myself at a tiny company that did just that - build little electronic widgets; there were only a few people there, mostly electronics engineers, i.e., colleagues. Of course, there was lots to talk about; we all had much in common. In a word - drinking buddies. That evening, we all ended up in a tiny Chinese bar. The topic of the day, discussed with much animation, were the types of problems that we all encountered professionally, in the main - the differences in how they're solved in China and in Russia. After the n'th glass of grape juice which they insulted by calling "wine", I told them the following story.

* * * * *

It was the end of the Eighties. Our computing center, which was a department of an agronomical combine, received a shipment of the newest computers with 5" Winchesters (hard drives), with the gigantic capacity of 20MB (made, by the way, in Singapore.) Which cost an astronomical amount. One month later, one of these gigantic drives went out of operation. Woudn't accept data, cursed us and our mothers when we tried formatting it... when we finally tried a low-level format, the evil truth became apparent: track 0 was hopelessly damaged, and this particular disk was ready for its traditional inscribed watch and retirement dinner.

Our division manager (my boss, Igor Eduardovitch, a.k.a. "Boss") said that he would rather hang himself than explain this to the top management and especially to the bookkeepers, since they would immediately and ritually sacrifice him, given the above-mentioned astronomical cost of the equipment and the miserably short usage period. As a reminder, this was the end of the Eighties; bookkeepers distinguished themselves by being scrupulously miserly, and technical personnel were their /a priori/ declared enemy.

However, our electronics engineers are, well, ours. The Winch was quickly disassembled, all its seals ripped away (we had nothing to lose anyhow), and all of its intimate places exposed to public view. Three of our main specialists (the senior mechanic - Evgenii Nikiforovitch, retired senior mech of the Northern Fleet, my boss, and me), all of us well-versed in the habits of the Big Iron produced in Minsk, Kiev, and Vilnius and always smelling of machine oil and soldering flux, took up the challenge. The Winch was long "hmmmm"ed over, and Singaporean simplicity, ingenuity, and graceful execution wondered at. After the first glass, we discovered the linear drive mechanism which moved the heads over the surface of the disk. After the second - a notch at the end of that mechanism and a photodiode pair which triggered just as the heads lined up with track 0. After the third one, we hit on the graceful solution of moving the photodiodes, so that "that bitch", as Nikifor'itch expressed it, "would think that 0 was now in another spot." A rusty nail was quickly procured from one of his bottomless pockets, I wielded a small hammer, and the whole affair was wrapped up with a small "ding!" as it was gently applied. That was all, except for the reassembly. A year and a half later, when I was leaving, "that bitch" was still working - without any bad sectors, by the way.

* * * * *

This was the story that I related to my Singaporean friends. They all had fits, poured the grape juice over their own heads, but could not and would not believe. The idea of the repair itself, sure - there was no doubt nor any arguments as to its usability. The thing that they couldn't fit into their heads was this: that somebody had come up with the idea of repairing this incredibly complex device without vacuum enclosures, hermetic zones, or sterile suits - and by using such a socialist instrument as The Hammer. Too bad we didn't have a sickle on hand...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Told by "Just Vasya" (prosto_vasia at somewhere.in.ru), via <http://www.anekdot.ru>

    --
                           OKOPNIK CONSULTING
            Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business
    Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming
                   443-250-7895    http://okopnik.com

Top Back

Mulyadi Santosa [mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com]

Sun, 5 Sep 2010 04:24:35 +0700

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 23:33, Ben Okopnik <ben at okopnik.com> wrote:

    > Y'know, I sent this to the Answer Gang years ago (back in the
    > linuxgazette.com days), but searching for it at LG doesn't turn up
    > anything. Hence, here's a great hard drive story - made all the more
    > pointed by the "here's what a speck of dust on a drive platter will do"
    > demo from the above link. Enjoy.

So the moral is, given enough bravery, hammer is enough to do the job? :D

-- regards,

Mulyadi Santosa Freelance Linux trainer and consultant

blog: the-hydra.blogspot.com training: mulyaditraining.blogspot.com

Top Back

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 18:29:21 -0400

On Sun, Sep 05, 2010 at 04:24:35AM +0700, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:

    > On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 23:33, Ben Okopnik <ben at okopnik.com> wrote:
    > > Y'know, I sent this to the Answer Gang years ago (back in the
    > > linuxgazette.com days), but searching for it at LG doesn't turn up
    > > anything. Hence, here's a great hard drive story - made all the more
    > > pointed by the "here's what a speck of dust on a drive platter will do"
    > > demo from the above link. Enjoy.
    >
    > So the moral is, given enough bravery, hammer is enough to do the job? :D

Or desperation. And don't forget the rusty nail, either.

    --
    * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

Top Back

Mulyadi Santosa [mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com]

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 01:30:42 +0700

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 05:29, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:

    > Or desperation. And don't forget the rusty nail, either.

Put it along with the song "Pass Out" by Tinnie Tempah...perfect! :D

-- regards,

Mulyadi Santosa Freelance Linux trainer and consultant

blog: the-hydra.blogspot.com training: mulyaditraining.blogspot.com

Top Back