Comment I scrap drives all the time (Score 4, Informative) 47
I frequently scrap hard drives for metal recovery. The controller boards have a lot of precious metal on them, so I sell them to a company called Boardsort (http://www.boardsort.com). The rest of the drive is mostly aluminum, so that ends up going to the scrap yard. The outer shell is cast aluminum. The platters are either aluminum or glass with the chrome plating with trace amounts of precious metals. The read/write head has a copper or copper plated winding on it, so I toss it with my electric motors along with the drive spindle. The magnets inside I may keep or give to someone who I know collects them.