I've got a mod in mind and I know that I can do it, but I'm a little slow on the actually physical workings of both the CD-Rom drive and a HD.

I'm wanting to install a window in one of the two, or even both. These will be totally non-working units and are for style only. They won't be plugged into the mobo at all but will have power fed to it from the psu. Is there anyway to keep both units "active"? In other words, what kind of electrical modding do I need to do if I would want the CD-Rom to keep spinning the disc and/or to keep the head scrambling over the platter?

I've got a spare psu from my crappy OEM and a bunch of Samsung CD-Master 24E drives and a few 4G drives that I picked up at a hack shop for a few bucks apiece so I thought about doing something with them. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Rob

P.S.
I know once I crack the HD open that any speck of dust will kill the HD. I'm not going to be using the HD for anything other than show. Thanks.

You can build a driver circuit that has a waveform generator and a small amp to drive the coil on the arm in the HD. Or you could use a PIC micro or a BASIC stamp a write a program that will generate a random signal so the movement will be more erratic and random. BASIC stamps are easy to program to do this type of stuff.

Actually you could just use a tiny audio amp and drive it with music or a recorded waveform of some sort.

I did an extreemely intricate window on a CD-ROM drive and it works flawlessly.

And for the record, I've been gone, I'm not really back yet, and when I am, I'll tell you where I've been. I'm tired and hurting right now. No questions, and put the cameras away.

LM, I'm dropping you a PM once I get settled in Indy (whenever the hell that is).

Never ask the government for anything in which it doesn't cost them a penny. They'll think that you are trying to pull one over on them.

Thanks!

Rob