Strange Screws

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Well, the other posters who called it a Torx were almost on the mark. What you have there is a Torx Plus which is marketed as a tamper resistant screw and this time Textron has put some actual controls upon the distribution of the tools needed to work properly with them. Guess they learned that everyone and their brother was selling the regular six-pointed Torx tools thus depriving them of any security benefits. Same thing with the Tamper Torx which was identical but which had a pin in the center of the star but which, once the pin was snapped off or the tool had a hole drilled in the tip, was easily removed.

If you want to buy Torx Plus tools you must, in theory anyway, be a legitimate user as defined by Textron although if you know anyone who works with them they should be pretty easily obtained at the cost of a case of beer. ;-)

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--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com
Reply to
John McGaw
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Hi, Many will make one good drive from two bad ones. Some fails in electronics part some fails in mechanical part. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

No matter what you do with it, the drive WILL die. It's the unfortunate, but inevitable destiny that we all share.

I've opened hard drives again and again in very filthy rooms and they've never shown any ill effects over the days, or in some cases weeks, that I operated them. I do this all the time with old drives because I can see what's happening inside the drive while I test my control circuitry.

If I was manufacturing hundreds of thousands of drives and had to worry about warranties and customer satisfaction, I'd be doing it in a clean room. And I would buy a new drive before attempting to repair a damaged one. But you definitely can operate a hard drive without the cover for a while; probably long enough to do whatever you want if you don't dawdle.

Reply to
stickyfox

Getting closer! Many in the Torx Plus line still are six-pointed drivers. The

5-pointed ones are known as "Torx-Plus TR" (Tamper resistant).

Identification chart:

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Torx-Plus TR sizes:

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jim menning

Reply to
jim menning

...

Don't those have 6 points?

Reply to
mc

From the picture, it's the screws that hold together the external case. Probably wants to upgrade the drive or put it in a different case.

Reply to
James Sweet

Not an accurate statement.

Torx drive screws have been used on vehicles for ten years plus. They are not (in their standard form) an anti tamper fastener.

Reply to
wrench
[I've been taking them apart to play with the magnets--- not as strong as I expected in the newer drives]

magnets? in a hard drive?

Reply to
wrench

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No guarantee that it's the right size, (OD approx .057 in, about the same as a T5 Torx) but search ebay for "5 pointed star screwdriver". Don't have a recent Seagate drive on hand to try it on or I'd let you know if it fits. You'll get a dozen or so hits from a guy named elvis fong who sells them for Sony and Sharp PDAs. Price is about a buck plus 5 bucks or so shipping from Hong Kong so call it 6 bucks or so total.

I ordered one a while back and he got it right out--seems to be a reliable vendor.

Let him know that you're looking for a driver specifically for Seagate drives and he might find one for you.

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--John
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Reply to
J. Clarke

Yes. Strong ones.

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Reply to
CJT

Yes, magnets in a hard drive. Part of the actuator.

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Reply to
J. Clarke

Definitely correct. For anti-tamper there is Torx with a pin in the middle that needs a Torx driver with a hole. Standard Torx is just very well suited for automated mounting and also very well suited to use with a Torx bit in an electric drill. Here you get a lot of "Spax" wood screws with Torx head.

Torx is optimised for maximum torque without damaging the tool or screw and easier insertion than the standard 6-way symmetric format. IMO ist qualifies as possibly the best all around screw head format.

Arno

Reply to
Arno Wagner

Yes, a pair of very strong ones in the moving-coil assembly that forms the head actuator motor.

Arno

Reply to
Arno Wagner

I

Voice Coil Assembly

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Reply to
Peter

Whoa. Someone actually *READ* the original post and looked at the linked picture.

Reply to
Folkert Rienstra

Too many maybes and negatives in this sentence for me to understand it.

They're also used in my car just to hold the trunk struts on. Nothing secret about that.

Don't get me started on what I used to do to elevators..

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Reply to
mm

On 16 Jan 2006 08:17:07 -0800, " snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote: ....

My drive is clicking, and one important partition has a very bad directory structure. I'm not sure I can copy over even the good partitions before it "fails". If I open it, what would I want to do to stop the clicking, or to keep the clicking syndrome from preventing me from copying the data to a good drive.

(The bad partition is FAT16 (because I was still running win3.1 and win98 and wanted both OSes to access the parttiion.)

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Reply to
mm

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Judging by the number of replies you got to this problem I would equate it to the complexity of opening up a coconut, but then again, you're in the right group! If your sole purpose is to have a tool for this type of screw Jim has the most helpful advice.

If your goal is to get I that drive case *NOW* I would suggest you take a flat bit screwdriver of the same width as the inner diameter of the screw in question and put it in there and loosen it up. Yes, this works extremely well and causes no damage to the driver or the screw. I have done this so many times to gain access to devices that uses these types of screws.

To avoid this problem in the future use only Seagate Cheetah U320 SCSI SCA drives!

Rita

Reply to
Rita Ä Berkowitz

Torx is 6 pointed star and won't fit 5 star screw head well. If you force the torx to work, you're liable to strip the wrench or worse the screw head.

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Reply to
Impmon

what are you going to do with it when you get it apart ???

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Reply to
lurk

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