This is our FIRST attempt at this risky but increasingly popular mod.  It's pretty interesting to see how the internal parts work and how they behave during certain tasks.  I also looks great!

The disk looks absolutely stunning! Mirror finish. 

You'll have to see one of these babies in person to appreciate just how good it looks.

I have included a window mod to show how we will display the drive in our case.

For our first mod, we used a Maxtor 15GB hard drive.

On to the pictures!

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Materials used.  Grabbed an old non-working Maxtor Hard Drive and used it's cover to create the mod.  I'd suggest doing this mod in a small clean room.  Bathroom is a good choice.

After cutting the plexi and hard drive cover, we simply put the plexi over it and used some nice silver (aluminum) tape to seal it. 

An angle view of the cover. :)

The reason we decided to place the plexi on top is because you want to make sure you have enough clearance from the internal parts of the drive.  You DO NOT want the plexi touching the spindle or any other part for that matter.  Doing so will probably cause the drive to shave off some of the plexi and at that point, you can kiss your drive goodbye!

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Now it's time for the test! Does it work?  You bet it does!

Notice the blue LED we attached inside.  Simply connected it to the HD activity on the Mobo. 

We decided on a top mount window kit to display the drive.  First, lets make the outline for the cut.

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First, lets put some masking tape around the outline to protect during the cut.

Alright!  Not bad?  Now lets debur and sand it down alittle.

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We will use an adapter to mount the drive on the first 5 1/4" bay.

Not bad!  Personally, I think it looks better than mounting it on the side panel.

Final product!

Well, there you have it.   Our first attempt was a success.

The only problem we had was that the blue LED we installed quit working for some odd reason.

Do this at your own risk!

Again, this is a very risky mod and any speck of dust that gets trapped inside will ruin the drive permanently and of course void any warranty you may have.

If you are attempting this for the first time, I'd suggest you use a drive you can afford to lose or an old drive you have stored lying around.

You wouldn't want to try this on a nice SCSI drive or any other expensive drive for that matter.

As long as you seal the drive really well, your drive should continue to work properly.  But remember that your dive will never be shielded as well and you will have to handle the drive with extreme care.

Good Luck!

Questions? Comments?  Discuss this mod here.