Metal shavings - dissasembly of HDs - concerns ?

[garywork]

Hi

you know when you've been (in my case) undoing several hard drives (old bangers) to dispose of and depending on the screws and drivers you sometimes get tiny metal shavings on the tip of the drivers - should i be concerned health wise ?

might sound mad but presumably people in electronic assembly jobs must have similar issues

nearly a question for Sheldon !

 

[Clarkey]

You planning on licking your screwdriver tips?

 

[JonJ678]

Metal shavings inside a hard drive will be bad news for the hard drive. Metal shavings eaten by you are very unlikely to cause any harm.

 

[garywork]

No licking guys - i'm just wondering or paranoid

and i remember in an MRI they were keen on any metal shavings in case it caused a problem

 

[Valentino]

Are the screws made from any of the following metals?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_metal#Toxic_metals

If not you should be fine. Also you should apply more pressure to stop the driver slipping and grinding down the screw.

 

[EniGmA1981]

^ That.

Or use a screwdriver that actually fits the screw head... then it won't slip out

 

[garywork]

Wouldnt say i've slipped - more shoddy screws or tools

think i need a high quality torq set - not an ebay £2 jobbie

think i'm just paranoid really . . .

 

[Gundog48]

No. The hard drive does not contain mercury or lead which would not harm you much anyway! How are you disposing of the HDDs? Wonder if you can get money for them because they are coated in platinum.

 

[garywork]

Platinum you say !

wish i'd known that before !

old samsungs by the way

 

[buachille]

Hi

you know when you've been (in my case) undoing several hard drives (old bangers) to dispose of and depending on the screws and drivers you sometimes get tiny metal shavings on the tip of the drivers - should i be concerned health wise ?

might sound mad but presumably people in electronic assembly jobs must have similar issues

nearly a question for Sheldon !

Whoah.........

You are going to die for sure, but don't worry we all die sometime.

Can't believe you took such outrageous risks though. My God man!!

 

[Pulseammo]

No licking guys - i'm just wondering or paranoid

and i remember in an MRI they were keen on any metal shavings in case it caused a problem

They ask if you have any metal on or inside of you (surgical or ingested etc) before an MRI because the magnets of the MRI machine could pull the metal out should that metal be magnetic.

 

[Gundog48]

Platinum you say !

wish i'd known that before !

old samsungs by the way

Only a tiny coating unfortunately. The manufacturing that goes into HDDs is amazing and it's a surprise they are so cheap! They are polished to within a few atoms of specification and is coated in a small amount of platinum.

This is a very interesting article about how they are made:
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/how-the-humble-hard-drive-is-made-667183