Trouble pulling out hard drive motors

Originally Posted by IanH84

We're ripping apart some old hard drives and read in a post here that it's worth more to pull out stepper motors and sell them. A bunch of them have the motor attached to the aluminum casing, and I'm wondering if there's an easy way to remove the motors and make it worth taking the time. I tried pounding one out as suggested in a Youtube video with no success. Here's one of the drives in question and another that I destroyed trying to figure out how they're attached.



Any ideas or should I just bring them to the scrapyard as-is? I'm also wondering if it's really worth the time to rip them apart just for the magnets if the motors won't come out. Logic boards are easy enough to remove so those go to Boardsort, but I'm not sure about the rest.

I flip them over and use one to support the top edge of the second one. Lay one down flat and put the top edge of the second one on it. Then take a 1/4"-3/8" punch and center it in the middle of the motor axle and usually one good smack with a hammer will drive it out. The inner wire-wound part will stay put so just use your screwdriver and pry it out.

You might also want to check out some of our buyers here, you might be pleasently surprised.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap-buyers-sellers/