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I have an ide laptop hard-drive from a Panasonic cf-28 toughbook. It has what looks like a coil wrapped around the hard drive. Can someone identify the component and its purpose? I have never seen anything like it. I read about the features of this computer, and watched some youtube videos, but I havent seen anyone point out the purpose of this part. Im not sure if it is coil to destroy the hd contents, or an antenna, or some weird shielding or what?...

the red an black wires coming off the ide connector attach to the metal film around the hard drive.

The hard drive is mini IDE 40 pin, but the connector the motherboard is a 50 pin JAE connector. The coil isn't connected to the IDE pins, but is connected to the JAE 50 pins, on pins 1,2 and 3,4 (grounds). This corresponds to the eject or audio pins, and grounds of the JAE connector. See this pin out diagram:

JAE Connector pinout

Clearly, this is not an audio device. The coil has a shunt resistor.

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  • Its called a FPC sheet, connects the hard drive to the motherboard, your service manual>>>>data2.manualslib.com/pdf4/82/8182/818119-panasonic/…
    – Moab
    Dec 5, 2019 at 17:50
  • FPC Flexible Printed Circuit. Ok, but what does it do?
    – j0h
    Dec 5, 2019 at 21:11
  • It connects the hard drive to the motherboard.
    – Moab
    Dec 5, 2019 at 22:49
  • @Moab, Im not asking about the IDE connection, Im asking about the coil around the hard drive. I looked at the harddrive section of the service manual, this part isnt shown.
    – j0h
    Dec 5, 2019 at 22:59

2 Answers 2

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It's a resistive heating element. Since Toughbook's are meant to operate in a wide range of operating conditions they have heaters around their drive to keep them from freezing in cold conditions. Same concept as the wires you find in the rear window defroster of a car.

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My guess is that it is some kind of radio frequency or magnetic interference shield.

Either the drive itself, or components in the laptop came out of, were producing radio or magnetic waves that interfered with the operation of the other. Rather than re-engineer or replace those parts, they used this as a shield to save time and money.

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