Removing the drive from a DiskGo.

I had some pictures stored on an old 120 GB DiskGo. I wanted to look at them and move the good ones to somewhere in the cloud.

It was old school so besides the USB connection to the computer, it needed a wall connection and a transformer.

I set it all up and switched it on and... it's dead, Jim. So, I decided to see if I could take it apart and get the drive out so I could hook it up to another computer to test it. You can see the itsy bitsy screws holding the cover on so I need some special tools.

You do have a set like this, right? I removed the top cover.

You can see the drive and the custom board it is attached to. It is just a standard drive so I will attempt to remove it from the case. I flipped it over and removed the other two screws.

The drive is held in the case with 4 more screws. I removed them, turned the case over, disconnected the yellow custom cable and, with a small set of vice grips, removed the power connector.

I then put the case back together and added it to my electronics recycling box.

I will test the bare drive later in one of my PCs on the bench.

Project: eMachines T-3256 restoration (5)

This eMachines model came with an onboard video chip - the NVIDIA nForce2, but the previous owner had upgraded to a nvidia GeForce 4 card. Here's a pic of the onboard chip and nearby the AGP slot for the add on card.

I removed the card to clean the fan (an artist's brush is perfect for the task).

After cleaning I reinstalled the card. This card is only slightly better than the onboard chip. Since the AGP slot is long since obsolete it is widely know the best cards for it are the HD 4670, the 9600 or the GeForce 4Ti. If I had to buy one the 4670 is still expensive but there are quite a few 9600 units around for good prices. Next step was on to the hard drive. Here's is a pic of the cage. It is held in place by a single thumbscrew.

Remove the thumbscrew and pull the cage up and out of the case.

 I picked up a used Western Digital 160 GB drive (2009) on eBay for $15.74 with shipping.

The cage is built to hold two hard drives (the Primary and the Slave). There is a jumper to set the drive(s) but since I am only using one I just verified that it was set as the default master. I installed the drive in the cage with the connections up so when it is in place I can easily attach the cables. Note how the holes on the drive line up to the hole in the cage.

I placed the cage back into its position and prepared to attach the thumbscrew.

And then I attached the data ribbon cable and then the power cable.