I can see there are many writings on the Internet for using an Arduino to control a 4 or 6 wire stepper motor, such as those that spin the platter inside an IDE hard drive.
I want to control the seek read/write head motor instead, can this be done? I'm struggling to find anything at all on this?
Since all signals to seek the disk come in via the IDE cable I'm hoping it will be achievable by replicating the same signals? This is a common method used with floppy disk drives and an Arduino. I just want to make it move!
I think you will find that all modern hard disk drives use brushless DC motors to spin the platters, and voice coil mechanisms to move the heads. No stepper motors used.
Hi dc42. Now I know its a VCM I have found lots more information, thanks for clearing that up XD
I have been looking at a SN754410 H-Bridge because I can get hold of these very easily, is this the kind of H-Bridge I would be in need of to make this work, does anyone know?
Yes, you could use an H-bridge to move the voice coil. Whether the SN744410 is suitable depends on the current needed - measure the resistance of the voice coil to find out (I expect the voice coil is normally driven from 12v in short bursts). I think the problem you will face is that you need position sensing feedback if you want to stop it in a particular position. The electronics of a hard drive determines the position by reading the track addresses or similar data under the heads.