Mayday! Ants in a sealed disk drive!
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From: Deepest Dark Afrika
Mayday! Ants in a sealed disk drive!
Elder son has Seagate 1Tb Free Agent External USB drive. Have just discovered that it is full of small black ants! And it's a sealed unit ... Just has some 1mm vents for air (and ant) circulation ...
Does anyone have any suggestions of how to get rid of the little b*ggers? Giving it a dose of Doom might not do the driver electronics a lot of good ...
Does anyone have any suggestions of how to get rid of the little b*ggers? Giving it a dose of Doom might not do the driver electronics a lot of good ...
Joined: Oct 2000
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From: Sunny Sussex
Vapona?
If you're determined, then seal it with strong tape. They'll suffocate before long. If otoh you're more compassionate, then open the thing up, let the buggers out.
Are you sure they're not I.T. ants, defragging & cleaning the thing up?
If you're determined, then seal it with strong tape. They'll suffocate before long. If otoh you're more compassionate, then open the thing up, let the buggers out.
Are you sure they're not I.T. ants, defragging & cleaning the thing up?
Joined: Jan 2008
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From: LONDON
It does depend on whether you want to kill them or not.
But if you dont mind killing them - switch off the drive and use a vacuum cleaner against the fan opening. This will not only get rid of the ants but will clean the drive of dust that could help prolong its life.
Incidently the term of a software fault being called a bug is from the days when a valve based computers occupied whole rooms - if an insect landed on the racks it would often cross contacts causing an error - hence the term debugging.
But if you dont mind killing them - switch off the drive and use a vacuum cleaner against the fan opening. This will not only get rid of the ants but will clean the drive of dust that could help prolong its life.
Incidently the term of a software fault being called a bug is from the days when a valve based computers occupied whole rooms - if an insect landed on the racks it would often cross contacts causing an error - hence the term debugging.
Last edited by Jofm5; 20th February 2009 at 20:07. Reason: Added bug info
I am going to read up about ants...and that magnet thing 
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From: Walton on the Naze Essex.
Living in Texas, I can affirm that ants can get anywhere. Anywhere whatsoever. The inside of bird-feeders - via the sticky liquid - into electronics, and of course in your pants.
These guys here cause subsidence, so a mere disc-drive would be an easy target.
Take a lesson from Richard Feynman. Observe them, and tempt them onto a different path. Use sugar, or a proprietary...erm, little plastic thing with nasty stuff in it. Wait until the dead of night, and if you can't wait for their slow demise, have a mallet at hand.
I spend a huge amount of time trying to save creatures...even cockroaches get put out carefully, but ants have made me their enemy.
These guys here cause subsidence, so a mere disc-drive would be an easy target.
Take a lesson from Richard Feynman. Observe them, and tempt them onto a different path. Use sugar, or a proprietary...erm, little plastic thing with nasty stuff in it. Wait until the dead of night, and if you can't wait for their slow demise, have a mallet at hand.
I spend a huge amount of time trying to save creatures...even cockroaches get put out carefully, but ants have made me their enemy.
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From: Wiltshire, UK
Place it between two high powered magnets.....or plunge it into a bucket of icy cold salt water
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From: Thinking about it, give me a minute.
Feline.
I have a Seagate and it gets incredibly HOT during use it even puts out a fair bit of heat on standby, they are sealed units no fan only a heat sink on base of unit. Put it under a heavy load and it'll heat up nicely, Ah! the aroma of roast ant
I have a Seagate and it gets incredibly HOT during use it even puts out a fair bit of heat on standby, they are sealed units no fan only a heat sink on base of unit. Put it under a heavy load and it'll heat up nicely, Ah! the aroma of roast ant
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Joined: Sep 1999
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From: Deepest Dark Afrika
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Well, since aforementioned 1Tb drive holds elder son's collection of modern music (Boom! Boom! Boom!) I was sorely tempted to try the magnet and bucket of ice cold water approach ... But the vacuum cleaner idea did flush quite a few of the little b*ggers out. They don't actually seem to mind the heat of the unit when operational - maybe this is the same syndrome as frogs being quite happy in a bowl of water that is bought to the boil?
Quite a few of them did decamp (complete with eggs) to a sealed speaker unit - and others to an audio switch box.
But as far as I'm concerned, I've signed off on the original problem, and I'm not opening any new job tickets.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
Quite a few of them did decamp (complete with eggs) to a sealed speaker unit - and others to an audio switch box.
But as far as I'm concerned, I've signed off on the original problem, and I'm not opening any new job tickets.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
Last edited by Feline; 22nd February 2009 at 16:52. Reason: Must post before imbibing ...
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From: Dublin, Ireland. (No, I just live here.)
I don't know that particular unit, but I think I can safely assume that it's a standard hard disk drive (HDD) in an external enclosure, and the ants have got in to the enclosure, but not in to the actual HDD, which should be sealed. Subject to the warranty, you might get away with opening up the enclosure, as long as you don't try to open up the internal hard drive.
Joined: Jan 2005
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From: London, UK
no vents in a hard drive
Are you confusing the whole computer with a hard drive? A hard drive is only one small component that stores data. It's a completely sealed unit and should never be opened as it will make it unusable.
If you have bugs in your computer do not use any sort of chemical or fluid to kill them as it will damage your computer. Open it up and use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of them. If you keep getting them then try putting the whole unit on a plinth surrounded with anti-bug tape
if this is an external usb hard drive then simply unplug it, unscrew the case, and clean using a vacuum. Make sure you don't lose the screws!
If you have bugs in your computer do not use any sort of chemical or fluid to kill them as it will damage your computer. Open it up and use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of them. If you keep getting them then try putting the whole unit on a plinth surrounded with anti-bug tape
if this is an external usb hard drive then simply unplug it, unscrew the case, and clean using a vacuum. Make sure you don't lose the screws!
