When life hands you a bad hard drive…make a clock!

Everything in life can assume multiple roles.  Technology and gadgets often have very short life cycles and are always being replaced by newer, faster, and smaller products.  Often times the device we dumped so much money for a few short months or years ago is now sitting on our desk or in our closet taking up valuable space.  I’m sure most people have experienced the unfortunate occurrence of a failing hard drive.  If you haven’t, I promise you your time will come eventually.  With a failed hard drives comes lost work, memories, and fun.  However not all has to be lost.  Take that old *sometimes smoldering* and decrepit hunk of metal, plastic, and silicon and turn it into something useful again….a clock.

Yes a clock.  Take your hard drive and re-invent it.  Give it new life and a new function.  Instead of storing your pictures, music, and documents, let it keep track of time for you.  Only true techie’s and geeks have computer parts functioning as other things they weren’t initially designed for.  If you are of the not so handy type and can’t possibly comprehend (even with instructions) on how to put one of these contraptions together, check out this unique Etsy seller who will gladly sell you a premade one.  As of writing 3/23/09 they are currently sold out so you’ll have to wait for your pre made hard drive clock.

However, if you’d like to take matter into your own hands and create your own Frankenstein, a great how-to is documented by Alan Parekh on his blog.  So if you want to get crafty try it out and send us some pictures of your success…or failure.  Either way, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the drive (no pun intended) and thought that counts.

Source: Ubergizmo, Electronics Weekly, Alex Parekh