Old hard drives have a way of hanging around past their useful life. Recently, I found I still had a lot of 2 to 30 GB drives in a box, so I decided to take the magnets out and reuse them. The magnets are great because they are very strong Neodymium that will hold anything firmly in place. These magnets are usually mounted to some sort of metal bracket with holes which will help you mount them and gives strength to the brittle magnets.



To take apart hard drives you need a few small Torx drivers, usually T6, T7 and T8. Usually there are a few screws that are hidden under the stickers. Feel the tops of the stickers to see if there is a screw underneath and run a razor around the outline to expose it. Once the lid is off, you usually have to take the read/write heads off to get the magnets off. Careful with these magnets, they are very strong and will probably pinch your fingers if they get between them.

