wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 20:17:00 -0500, KC wrote:

On 11/23/2013 7:51 PM, wrote:

I rare earth magnet from a bad disk drive and a piece of bead chain
makes a handy snaking tool.
Drop the chain down from the top and fish with the magnet from the
bottom. If you trim all extraneous metal off it will even fit through
a 1/2" KO in a device box so you can fish right into an existing box.
Use a "button" to clamp the cable.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/fishing%20magnet.jpg


Huh... never busted one open before..

I threw a lot of them away before I decided there might be something
worth saving.

I shot this one with a .380 and the bullet just bounced off (hit the
spindle)
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Bad%20W-D.jpg
This one was a genuine head crash
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/disk%20platter.jpg
This is an assortment of disk platters from 14" to 2,5"
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/clock.jpg

Still have a bunch of the magnets in the garage someplace. An RK04 platter
in the attic. 14" disk. Working for Maxtor, we saw lots of bad discs. As
we disassembled them to check inside. Surprising how durable they are. We
might have 6-7 disks setting on a cabinet top running tests and one would
fall off sometimes. Don't think we ever had one crash from the fall.