falen5 said:

I put each machine in a black plastic bin liner bag then wrapped each one in a blanket or sheet......think they would be safe.

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I know the temperature gets hot in summer and dam cold in winter..............starting to think this is not a good place to keep them

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I opened up one of the drives as I could not find any fault on the outside. Was a quantum prodrive lps. Turns out that the little rubber stop, under the platter , to stop the swing arm hitting the center of the platter had liquifed. got onto the arm and the head and all over the platter.............drive dead.

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Natural rubber (latex) under tension has a predictable failure pattern. Drive belts go ping, fall into the works and shrivel up. Little damage is caused and the belt can be replaced. In furniture or car seats, two inch wide straps degrade slowly (sag until your bottom hits the floor) and you can staple a replacement on the old attachments. Old fashioned synthetic rubber behaves in the same way.

Under compression, natural rubber seals dissolve into goo and the transformation occurs quickly. I've seen compressed car body seals change from rubber to mush in a couple of months. The rollers which fail on printers or tape drives tend to be those under compression. Temperature makes a difference so if you can pull all of your hard drives and store  them in a warm room over winter, think about it.

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What is to be done when all of the old drives have failed? Fake 'em! Install a SCSI or IDE to flash media device inside a hard disk case. Add a teeny weeny sound module to replicate hard disk activity.

Vintage race cars (I apply UK definitions) are allowed to use some modern substitutes for parts that will never be made again. Be honest about what has been done to keep it running.