ANSWERS : Technology

How can I make an old 2.5" laptop IDE hard drive spin up with out a computer? I tried connecting 5v to pin 42 (+5 VDC (Motor)) and 0v to pin 43 (ground) but the drive does not spin up, it just draws around 270mA from the supply.

How can I get the drive to power on? do I need to short out some other pins too? What about the jumpers?

I am guessing it needs some sort of "power on" signal but I am unsure how to give it this.

I am NOT connecting this to a computer BTW, I do not need to read any data. Just for the motor to spin up to have some "fun" with.

Thanks.

Comments

[Vyger]

The old IDE notebook drives were powered from the USB when you used a USB adapter. TO plug them into a desktop as an IDE drive you needed to get either a converter or an adapter so they could fit the standard IDE cable.
I could not find a converter at my usual haunts but I did find an adapter.

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Brackets/Adapter-Kit-to-Mount-25-HDD-in-35-Drive-Bay~BRACKET25

I used to get stuff like this from Geeks for a couple of bucks. But it looks like its becoming a speciality item and so the price is up.

[frollard]

It's not a DC motor, it's a 3-phase ac motor (can be driven with pulsed dc). You are just shorting one coil of the drive by hooking it up like that.

What you have to do is hook up the regular molex power to the drive, gnd, 5v, 12v - and then find a way to convince the daughterboard of the drive to spin it up; this is easier said than done. Older drives would just spin up, but newer models want to see a computer to convince them to spin.

If you can't get the original board to spin the drive by just applying power, then you need to design a motor driver. You might be able to use a brushless motor driver from a hobby store to make it spin.

[frollard]

*and of course, the drive might be borked/seized meaning even driving it properly won't get any results. Does the platter spin freely when disconnected?