tyrani writes "Spring is just around the corner and the front of the house isn't going to decorate itself. Build a Hard Drive Wind Chime and show your neighbors what a cool geek you really are." He's honest, too. From the article: "Many people linking this page on their blogs claim that this is a secure way of destroying your hard drive and its sensitive data. It is not completely true! The platters are never used in this HOWTO and could potentially be stolen by ninjas while you're making a wind chime and the data recovered by ninja-hackers."
This story is mis-titled... it should be how to keep your g/f occuppied... by letting her make windchimes... all the while, you go out and buy new hardware for yourself...;)
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday February 25 2005, @08:46PM (#11784192)
...to say that this is probably the lamest "hack" ever.
It doesn't have anything to do with harddrives, might as well have been an engine, mix master, or VCR. All he did was to string up a couple of shiny parts.
Not really, but they should be banned. No one wants to hear your windchime at 2am, least of all me. I have actually gone to a few nearby windchimes in the middle of the night and tied them together with fishing line to shut them the hell up.
My neighbor had a wind chime. It got to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore, so I waited until they were gone, stole it, and threw it in the garbage. Wind chimes are loud, annoying, repetitive, and no, I'm not a grumpy old man.
The so-called hack does not really use anything that is unique to a hard drive. He just cannibalized one to get some metal rings and some shiny metal thingies to hang them from.
Could have used a VCR, a CD player or even a bike!
I've found that cutting the string that supports the ball or disk in the center is the best method for dealing with them. The neighbor generally doesn't notice anything different for quite some time and when they do, they are usually stymied as to how to fix it.
This is why I loved slashdot. Thank you Zonk and tyrani for showing the spirit of what geekdom is all about. A story with no political bullshit, no anti-corporate rhetoric, no M$ bashing. Just good-clean fun with IT stuff.
BTW OT - Has anyone else seen the drives on TG [thinkgeek.com]?
I thought to myself, what a dumb story. Maybe I'll post a story on Pentium earrings. On a whim I did a search [google.com]. The moral is: no matter how dumb you think your idea is, someone has actually done it before you.
A little project to do when the MPAA and RIAA contracted DOJ and FBI goons are about raid your house for widescale copyright infingement they will probaly walk right past your creative little windchimes full of copyrighted material.
Now straighten out the wires and you're done! To make the chime cooler, you can add more rings to it.
that's right, because there's nothing cooler than having a lot of rings on the wind-chime that you made out of a hard drive. except maybe your gold-plated babylon five pocket protector.
Many HD platters these days are not metal, but glass. Found out the hard way when I tried to bend a busted DeskStar platter and it shattered into a billion tiny pieces, and cut up my hand.
Note that the magnet is extremely strong. Keep it away from other electronics and metal. Don't hurt yourself. Seriously, do not understand these magnets!
Really, trust me, you do not want to understand these things. If you understand a magnet, your head might explode. Please, put it down. Leave the magnet understanding to those who can handle it.
Here is my quick method for doing the same thing:
1. Drill hole in hard drive
2. Attach string
Of course, these don't make the nice ringing sound of a wind chime, they tend to clunk together.
Here's another method:
1. Duct tape hard drive to tree.
If you do enough of these, is it a RAID wind chime?
... and the problem is that since it's the same rings, there's no variety in the noise made, which is a necessity in a wind chime. You can use the platters too, but then things tend to get tangled, if you hang from the spindle.
Just out of curiosity, and yes, this is somewhat on-topic, how useful is arts and crafts for getting rid of old harddrives?
I mean, lets say I theoretically have an old harddrive with information on it that I absolutely want permanently destroyed. Whats the best way to do it on the cheap for a college student? I don't have access to acid or anything else like that.
I don't want to just throw it out because god knows who could find it, so I've wondered about turning it into art that nobody would find suspicious.
The older drives have larger disks. Look for some older MFM 5.25 hard drives.
They make a very very nice true bell like ringing sound. The more modern drive disks sound tinny. I would take the modern disks and cut them into segments. This also makes sure that the data is not easily recoverable. That and the liberal use of sand paper.
seriously - look through grandma's closet. There might be something useful there.
Rarr (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Rarr (Score:2)
Prag! (Score:2)
Heh I would have laughed harder at this if your nickname was Beecher instead of Davis.
No (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No (Score:3, Funny)
Nope, got me, I can't think of anything.
Allow me to be the first... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't have anything to do with harddrives, might as well have been an engine, mix master, or VCR. All he did was to string up a couple of shiny parts.
Mac Artists (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Allow me to be the first... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wind chimes are the tool of the devil (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wind chimes are the tool of the devil (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wind chimes are the tool of the devil (Score:2)
Re:Wind chimes are the tool of the devil (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, but this article should have been filed under YRO.
Parent
So... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a bad person. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm a bad person. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm a bad person. (Score:2)
Already (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't have to be a hard drive.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The so-called hack does not really use anything that is unique to a hard drive. He just cannibalized one to get some metal rings and some shiny metal thingies to hang them from.
Could have used a VCR, a CD player or even a bike!
A little lame.
wind chimes are the devil (Score:5, Funny)
I've found that cutting the string that supports the ball or disk in the center is the best method for dealing with them. The neighbor generally doesn't notice anything different for quite some time and when they do, they are usually stymied as to how to fix it.
Re:wind chimes are the devil (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
That's great but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's great but... (Score:2)
Step 1: steal one of those windchimes
Step 2: reassemble
Re:That's great but... (Score:2, Funny)
You have to go to Soviet Russia for that.
Actually I made one once, but it only stored 2 bits.
Re:That's great but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's great but... (Score:2)
Hey, if it works for cell phones...)
Ninjas!! (Score:3, Funny)
Too funny (Score:2, Funny)
In other useful advises... (Score:4, Funny)
Finally (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Oblig... (Score:5, Funny)
How about clocks? (Score:2)
Pentium earrings (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pentium earrings (Score:2)
Whoah.. anybody click on the first link in that search? Glad I have safe search off!
Re:Pentium earrings (Score:2, Funny)
Copyright Infingement evasion tactic (Score:2, Funny)
Windchimes drive me crazy. (Score:2)
cool? (Score:2)
that's right, because there's nothing cooler than having a lot of rings on the wind-chime that you made out of a hard drive. except maybe your gold-plated babylon five pocket protector.
Ninja-hackers? (Score:2, Funny)
Exactly how does one hack a ninja? Is it like hacking an Aibo, only more silent and deadly? Sounds fun, anyway...
Uhhh. I submitted this story on WEDNESDAY (Score:3, Interesting)
Rejected
And I even included a link to another page on the subject
WTF?
um... (Score:2)
Be carefull... (Score:2, Informative)
Promoting Magnet Ignorance (Score:5, Funny)
- AC
Quicker method (Score:2, Funny)
1. Drill hole in hard drive
2. Attach string
Of course, these don't make the nice ringing sound of a wind chime, they tend to clunk together.
Here's another method:
1. Duct tape hard drive to tree.
If you do enough of these, is it a RAID wind chime?
I've done this... (Score:2, Informative)
Destroying harddrives (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, lets say I theoretically have an old harddrive with information on it that I absolutely want permanently destroyed. Whats the best way to do it on the cheap for a college student? I don't have access to acid or anything else like that.
I don't want to just throw it out because god knows who could find it, so I've wondered about turning it into art that nobody would find suspicious.
Re:erm.. (Score:2)
Older Drives (Score:2)
They make a very very nice true bell like ringing sound. The more modern drive disks sound tinny. I would take the modern disks and cut them into segments. This also makes sure that the data is not easily recoverable. That and the liberal use of sand paper.
seriously - look through grandma's closet. There might be something useful there.
Case in point.... (Score:2)
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/25/stance_ang
Re:NOLF2? (Score:2)