[ale] How to safely remove adhesive paper from hard drive?

[aaron]

Mineral Spirits -- aka Paint Thinner -- is an excellent
"solution" (heh, heh) for removing sticky paper and
labels from just about any metal, plastic, ceramic
or glass surface.    Let a few drops soak in, wait
a couple minutes, and most labels will easily scrape
off with a fingernail -- in some cases you can just lift
them off.

Though a solvent, this has never harmed any of
the various plastics I have brought it into contact
with, including circuit boards, so it should be safe
to use near exposed hard drive circuit boards
and the like.

I found a (semi) oderless formulation of Mineral
Spirits as a store branded item at ACE hardware.
I keep a small bottle of it on the shelf in my office
as it's a great tool for removing windows license
quarantine warnings and other Mafia$oftl logo
tatoos from the used computers that I cure with
Linux.  

peace
aaron




On Thursday 24 July 2008 14:06, Jim Kinney wrote:
>  Ugg. Not fun!
> 
> If you are VERY careful, a cottonswab with cooking oil and a sharpened
> popsicle stick will remove the sticky tape from the drive tray (first) and
> then from the drive itself. Basically swap a microscopic amount of oil alond
> the adhesive joint, let it sit for a minute and gently pry with the wood,
> repeat, repeat, repeat. Each cycle of this wil loosn about 1/16" . Don't try
> for more as you run the risk of tearing things up.
> 
> I have heard of freezing the tape with "cold in a can" and scraping/prying
> but I have no experience with that.
> 
> Yes, I do have experience with the oil/wood process. I vowed to dig a new
> drive tray off ebay after I did it.
> 
> 2008/7/24 mute wonder <mutewonder at gmail.com>:
> 
> > I'd like to swap two laptop hard drives, but they're both stuck in their
> > special, uniquely shaped, removable trays with sticky paper.  One is 
almost
> > completely wrapped in closely fitted, one-sided sticky paper, but 
otherwise
> > removable from the plastic and metal fittings that comprise the tray.  
Since
> > the paper is so tight about the HDD, it may be able to fit into the
> > other laptop as is.  The other HDD is more problematic, as it's stuck to 
its
> > metal tray with a sheet of double-sided sticky paper.
> >
> > Any ideas how to detach the HDD without damaging it?
> >
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> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> -- 
> James P. Kinney III
>