egafd.com

[quote]A hard disk is vacuum sealed, there is no air or moisture inside. Fact. Air does not maintain the head to disk interface.[/quote]

Untrue, Harddrive heads are kept from contacting the platter surface by air. Its commonly known and is the reason harddrives have a little hole on the top, normally with a sticker in close proximity stating "Do not cover", it's protected by a micro filter and allows air pressure to be equalised.

[quote]if the seal was broken it would stop working.[/quote]

Again untrue, there is plenty of cases on the internet where modders have modded their harddrives to have a clear plastic top, in doing so they had to remove the top cover of the harddrive.

[quote]Looks like I'll be getting you one of those 'Dummies' Guides' for Xmas Prof T, Slater.[/quote]

Take a good read of it, before you pass it on.

[quote]The inside of the HD is not 'open' to the atmosphere.[/quote]

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive

The HDD's spindle system relies on air pressure inside the enclosure to support the heads at their proper flying height while the disk rotates. Hard disk drives require a certain range of air pressures in order to operate properly. The connection to the external environment and pressure occurs through a small hole in the enclosure (about 0.5 mm in diameter), usually with a filter on the inside (the breather filter)

Breather holes can be seen on all disk drives ? they usually have a sticker next to them

[quote]A hard disk is vacuum sealed, there is no air or moisture inside. Fact.[/quote]

Not fact. Air and moisture can get inside to varying degrees, depending on the manufacturing and environment it's in. Twingo seems to have been ahead of me here but no doubt he's wrong too.....*rolls eyes*

[quote]If you unscrew all the lugs on a hard drive and prise the case open with a big screw-driver you can hear the seal being broken.[/quote]

I have in my hand my Toshiba MK8026GAX HD from my G4 Powerbook (due to it dying on my only 3 days ago). I opened it up to destroy the platters before binning the thing and there's no seals being broken at all. I tell you what there is, though, Keith -- there's a warning that says "Do Not Cover Breathing Hole" and.....wait.....yes! on the other side is in fact a little breathing hole.

[quote]Software can deteriorate for no particular reason. For example you can switch on a Mac or PC and it will not start because of file corruption.[/quote]

File corruption could be due to bad media or misreading. File corruption does not mean 'software deterioration'.

[quote]This isn't stupid or drivel, it's just a case of you having no experience of dealing with this kind of problem but insisting on back-stabbing because you don't understand.[/quote]

The only thing I don't understand here is the above statement. Backstabbing because I don't understand? WTF?!! What are you talking about?

[quote]And on and on you go with the line 'from somebody who studied psychology...' Please don't advertise your ignorance and your sour grapes about not going to college because it really really grates and it makes you look like somebody with no education at all rahter than just a half-baked education.[/quote]

Lol. You're funny. You know nothing about me, Keith. You're really touchy when someone questions your knowledge of something. Belittling me doesn't win you the argument here. Sorry.

[quote]I'm also an IT Professional, fully certified with CompTIA, read the book, did the course and took the exam. [/quote]

Oh, well you obviously didn't pass with flying colours when a mere amateur like me has to tell you what stops heads crashing into platters and what software actually is. What did you do, nosh off the entire examination board? L o L.

Psychology......IT.......meteorology.....and yet you despise students! It's all coming together now, Keith. You never passed anything and so pretty bitter L o L.

Still no apology for accusing me of calling you stupid. *sob* If I was a psychologist (lol) I'd say you was a little insecure, Keith.

[quote]If you open the case of a hard-drive and then try and use it, it probably won't work again unless you work in a clean-room.[/quote]

Hold on a god-damn-pickin-minute! 'Probably won't work again'? In this post you confidently, and specifically, specified "if the seal was broken it would stop working." Now it's 'probably'. You didn't answer 'probably' in your final IT exams did you? L o L.

[quote]sounds like a very low pressure environs to me.[/quote]

Low pressure does not equal vacuum (and I question the 'low pressure environs' bit anyway.

[quote]There must be a reason for maintaining clean-room conditions inside.[/quote]

Yes, and if you'd listened to uncle Sam you'd already have a fair idea of the answer. Dust....hair.....dead skin....fluff....call it what you will.

[quote]I'll be letting you have a read of the 'Dummies Guide' before passing it onto Dr Slater.[/quote]

When you say 'dummies guide' are you sure you're not missing an apostrophe and you yourself wrote it? L o L.

this post

Messed up the forum's inbuilt html tagging.

Lol. Now you've been shown to be wrong you're trying to wriggle out of it by saying you didn't mean a total vacuum. Just using the term loosely, eh? Normally I'd give you the benefit of the doubt here, Keith, but you've had 5 posts to tell us what you really meant since you first mentioned vacuums.

What I'd like you to explain is how does the unit maintain a lower pressure than the surrounding atmosphere when there are breathing holes?

You say only Maxtor drives have breathing holes but I can categorically confirm that my Toshiba drive from my old Powerbook also has one. I have two Samsung F3s in my desktop here and if you want i'll have a peep and see if they have them as well. What say you?