In this hard disk’s case it was a T9.  Remove all the screws on the “cover” side.  There will be one screw that is hidden under the sticker.  It’s like the void your warranty sticker in this case.  You can find it by pressing your finger on the sticker and sliding it around, feeling for where there is a dimple under the sticker.  I use the torx head to scrape around the screw to expose it; a pocket knife works good too.

Go ahead and remove them from the controller board on the other side too because we are going to recycle the hard drive’s block of aluminum.

They don’t “glue” it on there but their is a bead of rubber that they put along the opening to seal out dust and it usually causes the cover to stick.

Any guesses on why this hard drive was marked “bad”?

Those circular lines on the platter are where the read/write heads gouged into the surface.  That’s called bye-bye HD.

There may not be a screw in it because the attraction of the magnets is so strong it’s not going anywhere anyway.

Step 4: Pry off the top magnet bracket.

You may be able to do this with your fingers but I usually just just a flat screwdriver.  Once you get it pried up a bit it will come off pretty easily.

You remove these first so when you remove the screw from the actuator arm the plate(s) can rise as you unscrew it (otherwise it kind of binds up).  You’ll have to hold the platters still because they will want to turn as you unscrew the screws.

There is a flat head slot in the shaft of the actuator that you need to unscrew.

Since you unscrewed the screws that hold on the platters you can lift up the actuator arm and the platter(s) at the same time and remove them.  The actuator arm will be connected by a ribbon.  There’s a connector on the other end of the ribbon that you’ll need to unscrew as well (or you can just rip the thing off there).Step 7: Free your magnets.  The magnets are glued the their respective plates with some pretty tough glue.  I’ve tried a couple different methods (including trying to pry them up with a pocket knife) but most of them end up damaging the magnets or even breaking them.  Here’s the most successful way I’ve come up with.  Take a pliers and grab the very end of the metal bracket the magnet is connected to:

Now gently bend the bracket away from the magnet.  I believe you’ll be most successful if you grab the bracket by about the least amount possible (not like the picture).  This causes the most gradual bend in the bracket.  Bend the bracket back–this breaks the seal of the glue.  In this case I used a vice grip on the other end to make it easier for me and it causes the other end to bend away from the magnet too.

At this point you can easily remove the magnet.

I repeated this same process on the other magnet.  First I broke off the plastic actuator arm stopper:

Bend one side away and then repeat for the other side.  Make sure to not press against the magnet because you can break it in half.

Success:

Your hard-earned magnets:

Sometimes, instead of the glue releasing from the bracket, the nickel coating will prove to be the weakest link and the glue will pull off an area of nickel coating.  This is a real bummer because the nickel coating is sharp on its edges and once it starts pealing up it wants to keep pealing up.  Here’s one magnet that this happened to:

Like I shared above, one useful reason to have one of these magnets around is to find studs behind drywall.  Your drywall is held to the studs with steel screws that these magnets will stick to if you pass over them. You’ll want to wrap the magnet in tape before rubbing them against your wall because the nickel coating will leave grey marks on your wall.  Gently slide the magnet back and forth across the wall and you will feel when you pass over a screw.  I use the magnets where the nickel pulled off for this kind of thing because I’m wrapping them with tape anyway.  These magnets are so strong they will stick to the head of the screw right through the drywall mud (and the tape):

Here’s my collection of successfully-removed magnets.  Yes, I’m a nerd.