Make a Keychain Out of a Dead/old Hard Drive

With this simple guide i'm going to show you how to make a nice keychain out of the head of an old hard drive.

The older are the hard drives (less then 120 GB) the better, since those hard drives had a thinner head then the recent ones, so they fit better as keychain: the bigger is the capacity of the hard disk the higher is the number of disks, so the height of the head depends on the capacity of the hard disk.

Step 1: List of Materials

- 3.5" hard drive

- torx 8mm screwdriver

- big flat screwdriver

Step 2: Get the Head From the Hard Disk

- with the torx screwdriver remove the 7 screws that hold the top cover of the hard disk

- get the flat screwdriver and remove the magnetic cover of the head

- move the head to the left so that it's free from the disks and with the flat screwdriver remove the central screw that holds the head

- now that the head is free, cut the orange flat cable

- put the flat screwdriver beneath the little pcb mounted on the head and bend it in order to remove it

- remove the thin terminals from the front part of the head with the screwdriver.

Your keychain is ready to be mounted in the ring that holds your keys.

Comments

[Cotera]

Ni idea!! I got a bronken HD from the job and did this trick! :-D

[jimmystyler]

Thanks! Happy that you tried it out!!!

[arhihou]

I made the same keychain 1 year ago & good job :D (y)

[jimmystyler]

Nice! hard disk power!!!!!!!!!!!

[seamster]

Such a simple but clever idea. I like this a lot!

If you haven't considered it yet, you should enter this into some contests! https://www.instructables.com/contest/ This fits the theme for a handful of them... Unusual Uses, Metal, and Reuse! :)

[jimmystyler]

Thanks for your kind words, I really appreciate it!!!

I'm quite new in posting stuff, so I'll do like you suggest and try to enter this little project into contests and lets hope to be voted XD. Thank you again.