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I mean, with hardware modifications of HDD, for example, by connecting directly to heads to record signal, and then play it back.

fixer1234
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Stalker
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    FYI the HDD always records an analog signal. The digital information is modulated, typically a variation on frequency modulation. Rather than try to write "ones" and "zeros", the magnetic particles are magnetized so that a flux reversal denotes a bit state transition, e.g. 1->0 or 0->1. – sawdust Sep 20 '12 at 17:55
  • Super User focuses on real world problems rather than theoretical ones, and this isn't about computer hardware or software as defined for the site, so it's probably off-topic. But it's an interesting question. Have you looked at how sound was encoded on tape? – fixer1234 Mar 28 '15 at 04:30

2 Answers2

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With sufficient hardware modifications: Why not.

As an alternative to sufficient modification you could also buy your own device starting from just electronics without ever touching a HDD. It is just how you define sufficient modifications

Consider that modern drive spins at speeds like 5400 or 7200 RPM; that is 90 or 120 rounds per second. So you could only record 1/90 th or 1/120 th second per track. And then you need to stop recording to reposition the head.

So yes, it is possible. But not practical.

Dave
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Hennes
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    If you were going down this route you could use just one spiral track so wouldn't need to reposition the head. Still not practical though:) – Rory Alsop Sep 20 '12 at 09:56
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    Agreed. But one would need to replace the head actuators. I think those are designed to only move in steps of one track. Then again: *sufficient modifications* :) – Hennes Sep 20 '12 at 10:08
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    with sufficient modifications you could probably even make it *actually play it back* :-) – wmz Sep 20 '12 at 10:56
  • @Hennes - stepper motors for the heads were obsolete decades ago. A voice coil actuator could be made to do a spiral track. – sawdust Sep 20 '12 at 17:48
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    I guess I am showing my age. Soon I will no longer be able to tell 'when we had a 5 **MB** drive with a broken sector 0 we rewired the head so head/sector 0 was on a different platter" (or able to tell but with none left to understand it). – Hennes Sep 20 '12 at 17:57
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This is actually how freeze-frame in live sports broadcasts was first done in the 60s, they had a specialized hard drive that would record the analog video frames to the platter, one frame per rovolution, and they'd change which frame was being played back by moving the heads in/out.

hintss
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