MP 1,1-5,1 Purple waxy substance on hard disk?

[LordeOurMother]

I have a 1 tb hard drive I pulled out of a Mac Pro 1,1, that I planned to use in my new 5,1 (read description) as a time machine back up. However, the hard drive has a waxy substance of a purplish colour on the bottom side, above where the four connectors enter the case above where the disk is inside.

Does anyone know what this substance is? I've never seen it on a drive before. It isn't in the drives which came with the 5,1, and it isn't on the drive that was in my 1,1.

Could it be something leaking from the new 5,1? The 1,1 is basically flawless so I know it can't be from there.

Also, it doesn't seem to affect the performance of the drive, as it still works.

 

[bsbeamer]

Likely is just silicon holding something in place or covering a hole to prevent dust entry. Is it caulk-like?

 

[LordeOurMother]

Likely is just silicon holding something in place or covering a hole to prevent dust entry. Is it caulk-like?

I'm not a super handy/practical person, so I don't wanna talk out of my ass here. But it isn't too dissimilar to the caulk you'd find in a bathroom, actually, no!

 

[bsbeamer]

That's almost certainly just silicon. (Most bathroom caulk is also silicon based.)

 

[ouimetnick]

Can you post a photo? Nothing that could leak in a Mac Pro. The old 2.5 GHz and 2.7 GHz dual core Power Mac G5 is the only liquid cooled Mac as far as I'm aware.

 

[chrfr]

That's almost certainly just silicon. (Most bathroom caulk is also silicon based.)

Silicone and silicon, in spite of their similar names, are not nearly the same thing. Caulk is often silicone based, computer processors are silicon based. In any case, there's generally no reason that anything silicone would normally be inside a computer, at least not near the hard drives in a Mac Pro.