Lubricating oil for HDD?

Jojo540 · Post by **Jojo540** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:39 am

I have an old Maxtor 40Go HDD which have a loud motor treble noise.

It seems that the noise is due to a lack of lubricating.

Suspension didn't reduce that noise, so before throwing it to the bin I want to try if oiling the motor will change something.

Does somebody has experienced oiling? or can give me a link?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:49 am

Jojo540 wrote:I have an old Maxtor 40Go HDD which have a loud motor treble noise.

It seems that the noise is due to a lack of lubricating.

Suspension didn't reduce that noise, so before throwing it to the bin I want to try if oiling the motor will change something.

Does somebody has experienced oiling? or can give me a link?

PM Rusty075, or search for posts by Rusty075 with the words "oil" in them.

Post by **Rusty075** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:51 am

NO,no,no,no.

HDD motors are not a user-servicable item.

Opening one up to try something like that will guarantee that the drive will be useless afterwards.

Bearings do tend to get louder as a drive ages, but there's really nothing you can do about it.

mg1394 · Post by **mg1394** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 9:27 am

Aww, come on!

Just like an old Yugo, just remove the drain-plug, drain well, then add about 35g. of good Pennzoil (30SAE), assuming it's available in France. Remember to replace drain-plug.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 10:26 am

Still, do use the search for Rusty075 and oil. Not "on topic" but you really want to read the one titled "the vicious cycle"

Jojo540 · Post by **Jojo540** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 10:34 am

Rusty075 wrote:
Bearings do tend to get louder as a drive ages, but there's really nothing you can do about it.

Because it's last chance before the bin.................I will try it...........and tell you

Post by **Rusty075** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:01 pm

burcakb wrote:Still, do use the search for Rusty075 and oil. Not "on topic" but you really want to read the one titled "the vicious cycle"

I do suppose that I am the unoffical expert on this topic

...but they did get really, really quiet.

hvengel · Post by **hvengel** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 1:38 pm

You will most likely kill the HD if you open it. On the Tech TV show the screen savers thier modder, Yosi, modded an HD by replaving the cover with one made out of plexiglass so you could see it working. He killed three drives before getting the fourth to work. And only Yosi knows how long the fourth drive kept working.

The problem is that these are assembled in a clean room because the tolerances are so small that even a very small piece of dust will cause a drive failure. Do you have a clean room?

Jojo540 · Post by **Jojo540** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:18 pm

hvengel wrote: The problem is that these are assembled in a clean room because the tolerances are so small that even a very small piece of dust will cause a drive failure. Do you have a clean room?

I don't plan to remove all the disks, just remove the cover to access where to put oil.

I don't plan to use the method explained here:
(sorry it's in french, but the pictures will talk to everybody):
http://www.jpcheney.org/rubriques/00000061.htm

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:33 pm

hvangel, I thought the way you do, until I went to do my military service.

There I met this about-to-be-retired technician sergeant who had pieced together a PC from parts thrown into the bin. He had a 10MB (yes, that's right - 10 megabyte) hard drive that was not working. He took it, opened it, cleaned it with pressurized air & contact cleaners and miraculously got it working again.

When I met him, his rig was still going on strong for 6 months. Granted, every three weeks or so his hard drive would fail, so he'd open it up, clean it and put it back together with almost no data loss (except the file he was working on when the hdd crashed). I didn't believe him until I saw him do it. His office was definitely not clean.

He may ofcourse be the exception.....

hvengel · Post by **hvengel** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:35 pm

The guy on TechTV didn´t remove any of his disks. He just replaced the cover with a clear one and he killed 3/4s of the drives he did this to. In your case since you say you will through out the drive if you can´t get it quiter than you might as well go for it. But the odds of it working for very long or at all after you have opened it are very low.

Jojo540 · Post by **Jojo540** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:58 pm

hvengel wrote:But the odds of it working for very long or at all after you have opened it are very low.

Do you mean that, if after lubricating it works I must run to play bingo, cause it will be my day?

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 3:47 pm

Man, just don't do it.

If you are desperate and want to get rid of some noise and don't care about the consequences, try this first before the oil: Just wrap the HD in some old T-shirt or something and put it like that in the case. It's a easy nobrainer solution that might work out well if the HD runs cool enough. I can guarantee that it will work for at least a couple of hours, just try it out for some seconds and listen to the difference!!! I've done it in my old P2 just because i don't care about that 4 GB drive, works fine.

If you go for your oil solution, the HD will spin at startup at best. You might still be able to use it as a foot warmer in the winter. I'm a mechanical engineering guy and based on my knowledge this is a bad idea.

Oh and one more thing: Don't forget to backup!

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 3:54 pm

no, it just means a dust particle big enough to instantly cause a head crash didn't get in there (or it did, but didn't happen to settle in the right place), but it'll still probably die much sooner. i'd try oiling a drive myself, but only to get data off a drive that already died of stiction or so...

as for that 10MB drive, back then the heads were much different, data density was much lower, and the fly height was much higher, so i don't have much difficulty believing that. its huge sliders probably fly high enough to bash dust out of the way without hitting the disk.

see http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/ ... s/abs5.gif

Gxcad · Post by **Gxcad** » Sun Nov 14, 2004 9:04 pm

Do the mod in the bathroom after you run the hot shower for 10- maybe 15 mins. The steam in air tends to gather all the particles in the air and makes it settle, so IIRC run the shower for 10 mins hot, then let the steam settle, then do the mod leaving the inside of the hdd exposed for a little time as possible (cover parts of it with clean saran wrap if you must).

I read this on a site where they showed how to do a window mod for a hdd so I am not an expert (nor did I try it) but thought its worth noting.

And yes, the general consensus is that failure rate is VERY high. Be psychologically prepared.

-Ken

Lubricating oil for HDD?

Lubricating oil for HDD?

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