Strange Screws
in [Repair]
|
Prev: Sharp 13SB50 tv
Next: JVC subwoofer problems.
From: Isaac Wingfield on 16 Jan 2006 23:10 In article <ic4q441a4s.fsf(a)mk.telcordia.com>, Dan Espen <daneNO(a)MORE.mk.SPAMtelcordia.com> wrote: > gypsy3001(a)yahoo.com writes: > > > I'm looking for a 5-point star shaped screwdriver. I bought a Seagate > > 80GB external hard drive. Its case uses these special screws. I shot a > > picture of a screw here: > > http://www.gearhack.com/Forums/Tool/Screwdriver_for_5-Point_Star_Screw.files > > .hidden/5-point%20star.jpg > > > > Does anyone know where I can find a screwdriver for these screws? > > Thanks. > > In my opinion, someone should be arrested for using these things. They're not used to make it difficult for you to get inside, but because it reduces manufacturing cost. Those screws don't slip off the bit, and you don't have to apply any pressure to the driver to prevent "cogging". They're just perfect for torque-limited power drivers in high-volume manufacturing situations. And as others have mentioned, they come out very nicely using a properly-sized flat blade. Sometimes a hex wrench will fit, too. Isaac
From: Isaac Wingfield on 16 Jan 2006 23:14 In article <43CC053E.C7071C2B(a)hotmail.com>, Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > wrench wrote: > > > > [I've been taking them apart to play with the magnets--- not as strong as I > > expected in the newer drives] > > > > magnets? in a hard drive? > > Take them out, give them to a child to play with, and the child will be > bleeding inside five minutes. NO! Do NOT do that. Some of those magnets can crash together fast enough to shatter. If they shatter, the small pieces (also sharp), do not have enough mass to be strongly attracted to whatever is left of the magnet. They can fly away at very high velocity, and cause serious injuries (to eyes, for example). Isaac
From: Isaac Wingfield on 16 Jan 2006 23:21 In article <43266tF1kt0oeU1(a)individual.net>, Arno Wagner <me(a)privacy.net> wrote: > In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage wrench <wrench(a)409.com> wrote: > >> Torx screws are seldom used for no other purpose then to keep the > >> prying eyes of consumers from sensitive stuff. Thats why they're > >> used in elevators. > > > Not an accurate statement. Torx drive screws have been used on > > vehicles for ten years plus. They are not (in their standard form) > > an anti tamper fastener. > > Definitely correct. For anti-tamper there is Torx with a pin > in the middle that needs a Torx driver with a hole. Or a little work with a strong, small flat blade, to bend it back and forth until it breaks off. Isaac
From: Joshua Putnam on 16 Jan 2006 23:49 In article <isw-B6E590.20141016012006(a)comcast.dca.giganews.com>, isw(a)witzend.com says... > In article <43CC053E.C7071C2B(a)hotmail.com>, > Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > Take them out, give them to a child to play with, and the child will be > > bleeding inside five minutes. > > NO! Do NOT do that. > > Some of those magnets can crash together fast enough to shatter. If they > shatter, the small pieces (also sharp), do not have enough mass to be > strongly attracted to whatever is left of the magnet. They can fly away > at very high velocity, and cause serious injuries (to eyes, for example). Also can cause death if ingested, google for the recent news reports of a toddler killed by magnets from Bionicle if I remember correctly, attracted to each other through neighboring bends in the child's intestine. -- josh(a)phred.org is Joshua Putnam <http://www.phred.org/~josh/> Updated Bicycle Touring Books List: <http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/tourbooks.html>
From: Chris Lewis on 16 Jan 2006 23:50
According to Folkert Rienstra <folkertdashrienstra(a)wanadoo.nl>: > "Chris Lewis" <clewis(a)nortelnetworks.com> wrote in message news:11so3btnaaadg1b(a)corp.supernews.com > > According to mm <NOPSAMmm2005(a)bigfoot.com>: > > > My drive is clicking, and one important partition has a very bad > > > directory structure. I'm not sure I can copy over even the good > > > partitions before it "fails". If I open it, what would I want to do > > > to stop the clicking, or to keep the clicking syndrome from preventing > > > me from copying the data to a good drive. > > The best way to ensure that you can copy over the good partitions > > is to _not_ open the drive first. > > The safest way is to image copy the whole drive to a new drive. Put > > the old drive in a safe place, and try to repair the new drive's > > directory structure. Preferably doing a backup of the image you copied > > to the new drive before you diddle it, so you can start over _without_ > > touching the old drive. > > The clicking is most likely retries > > (ie: gouged media, weak magnetics). > Just any unrecoverable read error (which isn't necessarily a physical one, > it can just be a bad write, ie a logical error). > > You _can't_ fix that. > Yes you _can_, for the logical bad blocks. Not by opening the drive... About the only thing that someone that doesn't have major equipment can accomplish by opening it up is to replace the drive electronics. Some of our support people are quite good at resurrecting drives by swapping the electronics (they keep electronics sets from head-crashed drives). But the OPs problem is not the electronics. Perhaps most of these types of failures (drive clicking - retries) can be "fixed" by causing the drive to write on the bad blocks, and then doing a fixdisk or equivalent. I'm familiar with somewhat older gear under UNIX, where you take the sector number from the error messages and use "dd" or write a small program to write a single block over the bad sector. Then run the file system repair utilities (ie: fsck) to clear/reclaim it. These days with smarter controllers, they sometimes automatically self-repair (spare out the bad sector), or a simple low-level reformat of the drive will fix or spare it out. You might find a suitable procedure on the manufacturer's web site. -- Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them. |