Friend gave me this for free.

[Tmac7]

Is this of any use or is it too old?

its a IBM 40gb IDE Hard drive. I don't know if its for a laptop or desktop computer. let me know

Thanks

[Masherbrum]

Depending on the age of it, just beware of putting things on it.   You can probably use it, but I wouldn't put anything important on it.   Because it very well may crash.

[OOZ662]

If you can hold it with a flat hand using just your fingers and not have it overlap very much if any, it's for a laptop. If it's about the size of your face, it's for a desktop. Also, it's VERY rare to see IDE hard drives in laptops, and they're special ones.

Like Karaya said, it isn't going to be very reliable. With the way they were made back then, it could run for years. If it's been abused, it might die in a few days. You can't really tell.

[Tmac7]

Well i was looking to get rid of it sell it because i have no need for it my friends Brother-in law passed away and he had stuff that was being thrown out old computer parts never been used and i took that because it looked interesting

[Fulmar]

It could be a Deathstar.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

This kind of HD is recycling center material. Nobody's going to pay more than 5 bucks for it.

[Tmac7]

alright thanks well worth a  shot grabbing it

[OOZ662]

PLEASE don't just throw it in the trash. That's like throwing away batteries. Everybody does it, but it's an environmental nightmare...

[Tmac7]

i'm a pack rat im gona keep it lol

[Masherbrum]

PLEASE don't just throw it in the trash. That's like throwing away batteries. Everybody does it, but it's an environmental nightmare...

Agree.

[gyrene81]

The magnets inside those things are a lot of fun...the big old scsi drives had some really heavy duty magnets in them...something else...if you hit it just right with a 3 pound shop hammer, it makes some neat sounds when you shake it.

[OOZ662]

Oh yes. Back in my computer repair station at the high school, I used to take apart the dead hard drives to salvage the magnets. You can practically stick a ream of paper to a whiteboard with one of those things.

[Denholm]

Question: Which tools do you use to open them up? I have a dead IDE driver with some strange, "stripped" screws holding it together. Doesn't look as if a typical screwdriver will open it up.

[OOZ662]

Some of them use star-drive bits. The older ones are regular phillips heads. We didn't have any star-drives, so I couldn't open those.

EDIT: Most hard drives have star screws in the top plate. Sometimes those holding the chipset on are phillips, and sometimes that leads inside. We had boxes of hard drives of the same model, so that's why I had so many I could salvage.

[Denholm]

Ah, okay. Thanks for the information.