Dead Hard Drives, Broken Camera Parts

Most photographers with an interest in still life imagery have probably accumulated various assortments of items to shoot at a later date. I presently have a backlog of various electronic bits that should look interesting but haven’t made it into a picture yet.

I’ve wanted to get a closer look at a hard drive platter for a while, which I did yesterday.

I also wanted to see how easy it might be to securely delete data. With a hammer.

As it happens, 2.5” IDE drive platters shatter readily, and to completely satisfactory effect, whereas larger 3.5” SATA disks deflect blows and bend without breaking, which is highly disappointing.

I think I’ll try out a metal boring drill bit next time a 3.5” drive goes down.

My Canon 20d camera ate two shutter assemblies like this before I sold it.

This is the main circuit board from my 5d II. Canon replaces the entire board to fix the USB connector when it wears out, which seems excessive.