I've some trouble with the following drive:

Brand: Western Digital
Model: WD5000AAKS
Firmware: 00TMA0

The drive spins up, makes some clicks and restarts. The clicks are not very hard, but still it sounds like a head probleme. Now I am searching for a donor drive. If I have the drive I want to make sure to do take the correct steps.

First I though of swapping the PCB with the correct firmware version, but I read on the internet these drives have special calibration data in a chip. This data is unique. Swapping the PCB could cause in additonal damage to the drive. Can anyone answer the following questions:

> If the drive is not recognised by the bios, is this always a indication the PCB is broken? Or will this also happen with for example broken heads?
> Is it true you can not replace the PCB of these harddrives, due to special calibration data?

The next step will be opening the drive in a cleanroom. This will be my first time so first I want to practise a little bit on old drives. I checked this website with usefull information:
http://www.myharddrivedied.com/presentations/

If anybody have some more websites with information for replacing heads of a harddrive, please post it.

thanks

Replacing the heads of a "hard drive" is simple.

Unless that "hard drive" is a Western Digital, when certain anomalies join the game.

Most "pro" companies don't enjoy working with these drives too much; I get the impression that you don't have 10+ years' experience in DR and mechanical repairs - so don't risk it.

Just my POV.


Duncan

I can post a video of myself .... but you're not me. If you see a video of Dr. Barnard doing a heart transplant, it doesn't mean tomorrow you can do the same

Thank you for your replies. In my country we have the saying that if you never tried it, you are sure it will not work.

I don't have the possibility for professional data recovery, so I will try it for myself. If someone still has some usefull hints, please let me know

means Your Data is not Important.. try Yourself and You will make thing worse and worse until unrecoverable, This is WD ( Worst Drive ) man..

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The net is full of bullsh... Er, suggestions. Try, 99,98% you'll destroy data and drive but if you don't try you'll never know. DON'T ASK US ANYTHING MORE and... Good luck.