What do I need to do to a CD Drive to get the most $ from it?
What about a Hard Drive? What do I take off/leave on, etc. Thanks in advance!

Unfortunately this doesn’t have an easy answer.
The quick response is pull the board off and put the rest in your steel shred scrap, for CDs and aluminium shred scrap for hard drives.

That said, you can do better. Since you asked.

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First: Hard drives are a pain to open. I suggest the precision set from ifixit or the Performance Tools sets over 100 bits. The former comes with a lifetime warranty. The latter will last a few hundred hard-stuck screws per bit (years) and costs very little.

Hard drives are generally extruded aluminium shells for modern drives, magnesium or older double height and 5” drive, and a mix of both plus manganese for 8” or larger drives. All of which add up in weight quickly.

The top covers are usually aluminium with steel brackets or a glued steel cap.

The platters are either a metallic glass or aluminium (gold alloy platters exist in larger sizes, 8” and above”). The boardsort price is actually a bit above average here.

Large yards and specialist refiners buy the read/write arm assembly for around $1 each in bulk. Or 25-50č each to most. There’s gold, silver, and a tiny bit of rhodium.

Neodymium magnets can run over 50c per pound. Those older huge drives often have cobalt magnets. They have a white coating. That’s $12-13 per pound.

Drive motors will get you 50č a pound at most yards.
You have some flat ribbon cable and an end connector as well. And a pile of high grade stainless steel screws.

Be very careful with hard drive magnets. (Please don’t ship them in bubble mailers). Neodymium magnets are strong enough to break fingers if you get between the magnet and a large piece of steel.
Those 2” long cobalt ones in 8 inch plus drives can amputate. If your screwdriver gets stuck call it a loss and move on. You likely won’t get it free without causalities.


Optical drives are a bit of a lost cause unless you have a very large amount and a good ebay reputation.

Working parallel boards and 1x true-IDE boards can fetch good money. Anything else is scrap.

The drive motor and the stepper motor can fetch up to $1 in bulk. Laser assemblies can run as high as fifty cents for HD lasers.

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Awesome!! Thank you so much for all the information! In other words, the hard drive will be worth more $ when taken apart, correct?

Hard drives are worth more money taken apart.
The question for the scrapper is if it’s worth the time to get the money.

The best advice I can give you is to grab one of those $30 Performance Tools sets and try one. If you can do it in a reasonable amount of time for you… go for it.

Even if you don’t like the process, every tech and scrapper should have a micro-bit set.

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Agreed. I am loving the one I ended up getting from iFixit.