PixelTrickster

Here's a simple, ten-step procedure for quickly and easily removing a hard drive from an OWC / MacSales Mercury On-The-Go 2.5" enclosure:

Materials

• Piece of cord, approximately 1/8" in diameter and at least 20" long (a thick shoelace works well and is what I use)
• Two 1/4" soda straws (these are smaller in diameter than usual)
• Five sheets of 8-1/2"x11" photocopy/computer paper
• Mercury On-The-Go 2.5" hard drive enclosure with installed hard drive

Procedure

1. Thread the cord through the 2 soda straws, so the inside ends of the straws meet at the center of the cord (the tip of a shoelace simplifies the threading).
2. Tie the free ends of the cord with a square knot so the cord forms a closed loop.
3. Position the straws on the loop so about 3" inches of cord is uncovered between the inside ends of the straws and about 4" of cord uncovered near the knot.
4. Remove the plastic end cap from the hard drive enclosure.
5. Place the enclosure on a flat, horizontal surface.
6. Holding one soda straw in each hand near the knotted end of the loop, simultaneously push the two soda straws into the narrow, open spaces between the sides of the hard drive and the sides of the housing on either side of the drive (above the mounting rails, with one straw in each space), while sliding the uncovered 3" of cord over the hard drive until it lies behind the far edge of the drive, above the edge connector.
7. Stack the 5 sheets of paper on top of each other and fold all 5 sheets at once, making three folds as follows: First, fold 1-5/8" of the narrow end of the stack back onto itself. Second, starting at the crease created by the first fold, fold 3" of the same end of the stack back onto itself so the first 1-5/8" of the stack lies under the 3" portion. Third, fold the remainder of the stack over the 3" portion until its edge falls just short of the outside of the crease created by the second fold, resulting in a thick wad of paper that is 8-1/2" long by approximately 3-1/4" wide. Depending on the paper used, you may have to modify the dimensions of the folds--the final, approximately 3-1/4" width is the critical dimension.
8. Now for the magic! Holding the wad of paper with the last folded portion (the one with the free edge) facing upward toward the roof of the enclosure, carefully slide a narrow end of the wad into the enclosure in the space between the roof of the enclosure and the top of the hard drive and adjacent soda straws, until the wad bottoms out near the far end of the enclosure above the cord (this is critical), thereby wedging the cord below the wad and behind the far edge of the hard drive. To perform properly and keep the cord from slipping over the drive, the wad must fit in the enclosure tightly enough so that sliding it in takes a fair amount of force.
9. Firmly grasp the hard drive enclosure near the open end, placing your fingers partially over the opening to control the exit of the hard drive.
10. Grasp the knotted end of the cord by curling all four of your fingers around it, with your fingers facing upward, then slowly and firmly pull the cord and enclosure in opposite directions, until the hard drive starts to move. Once the drive starts to move, carefully pull the cord and hard drive away from each other with only enough force to slowly slide the drive (and wad of paper) out of the enclosure.

As you likely will find when you try it, the procedure in far faster and easier to perform than it is to describe. To write this description, I had to extract the drive from my Mercury On-The-Go hard drive enclosure, which took only a minute or two.

Pictures

2.5" Drive Installed in Enclosure:





Cord with Straws Installed, Opened Enclosure, and Wad of Paper:





Cord and Straws Fully Inserted in Enclosure:





Wad of Paper in Enclosure, but Not Far Enough to Stop Cord from Slipping:





Wad of Paper Properly Seated in Enclosure:





Bottom View of Partially Extracted Drive:

computeruler

2 ways post it on photo bucket and take the direct link and copy it from photo bucket then click and the sqaure with the mountains and type ctrl v or when you are posting go into advanced and at the bottum click manage attachments

PixelTrickster

Thanks, computeruler! I inserted links to the pictures. If there's a way to insert them directly in the post, please let me know and I'll make the changes.

computeruler

ok so there are to links on the picture try the other link and it should show them directly

PixelTrickster

Thanks again, computeruler! Copying and inserting the "IMG Code" link for each picture at PhotoBucket did the trick.