Dear friends and colleagues,

After almost 2 years of development and testing, we are proud to announce that our Spindle Replacement Tool (platter change solution) is finished and available. Our friends and colleagues have tested the tool over the last few months and reactions were very good ( except minor Fedex problems ).

Here is the animation of the tool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlDapAlIxEg

Also, here is the video that shows the functioning of the tool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LM4Jbm9dfU

HDDS Spindle Replacement Tool Seagate 7200.10/.11

HddSurgery Spindle Replacement Tool uses the whole new approach to hard drives with jammed motors. Instead of transplanting the platters to a new hard drive, only the bearing is replaced on a patient hard drive. This way of functioning implies that the heads, spacers and platters remain in place, while only the bearing is being replaced, which eliminates almost all of the difficulties that go with the platter transplantation process.



Spindle replacement process

Extracting the donor bearing

To prepare the bearing that will be used in the spindle replacement process, the whole working bearing must be first removed from a donor hard drive.

1. Best way to remove the bearing from donor hard drive is to first remove the heads from a donor, then remove the platters along with spacers between the platters. This means to remove all internal parts of the hard drive except the platter carrier – “the hat” and the bearing on which it stands.

2. When the hard drive is prepared in this way, place it in the tool so that the bottom hole of the tool is precisely under the bottom side of the hard drive spindle. To place the drive correctly, use the needle on the upper side of the tool. Push the needle down and place the drive so that the needle points to the top side of the spindle.



3. When the hard drive is positioned correctly, use 6 butterfly-screws to fix the hard drive in place. Pull the needle up by unscrewing the needle-screw.

4. Turn the tool upside-down and screw the bottom cylinder in the hole on the bottom side until it hits the drive itself.

5. Through the bottom cylinder, screw the spindle-pushing screw to start pushing out the bearing from the hard drive case. Since this screw is not long enough to push out the bearing completely, we must use the piston.

6. Remove the spindle-pushing screw, place the piston inside the bottom cylinder, and then screw the spindle-pushing screw again to push out the bearing completely.



After pushing out the bearing, it comes out along with the platter carrier - “the hat”.

7. Turn the tool upside-down again and remove the hard drive casing.

8. Position “the hat” with bearing above the bottom hole on the tool the same way like when placing the hard drive (using the needle).



9. Screw the needle-screw to push out the bearing from “the hat”. After this, the donor bearing is extracted and prepared.



Preparing the patient hard drive

10. Remove the lid on a patient hard drive.

11. Remove 4 screws from the platter fixation lid that’s holding the platters in place. Be sure to remove screws two by two from opposite sides so that the two screws on the opposite sides remain.

12. Use 4 screws previously removed to screw the platter holder to the platter fixation lid. Make sure to screw these screws tightly because these screws will suffer a great amount of pressure when pushing out the bearing.



Placing the patient hard drive on the tool

13. Place the patient drive on the tool so that the platter holder coincides with the upper cylinder of the tool. The needle in the upper cylinder must also coincide with the central hole in the platter holder.



14. Pull the needle all the way up (unscrew the needle-screw) and then screw the upper cylinder (by hand) until it touches the platter holder.



15. Use 4 or more evenly distributed screws to affix the upper cylinder to the platter holder.

16. When the upper cylinder and the platter holder are firmly attached, make sure that the cylinder doesn’t move anymore. Do this by screwing the clamping nut (by hand) on the upper cylinder until it touches the ramp. At this position, tighten the screw on the clamping nut so it wouldn’t move.



17. Tighten the casing of the hard drive using 6 butterfly-screws on the sides of the tool. Tighten 2 butterfly-screws in the middle first.



18. When the hard drive is in place and firmly attached to the tool from the upper side, turn the tool upside-down and screw the bottom cylinder until it touches the bottom side of hard drive.



19. Screw the clamping nut on the bottom cylinder until it touches bottom side of the tool. Tighten the screw on the clamping nut. Place another clamping nut on the cylinder also.



20. In order to know the height on which the bearing is on a patient hard drive, screw the spindle-pushing screw in the bottom cylinder until it hits the bottom of the bearing on hard drive.



21. Unscrew the second clamping nut (that was previously placed on the bottom cylinder) until it hits the spindle-pushing screw. At this point, tighten the screw on this clamping nut to fix it in that place. These two clamping nuts on the bottom cylinder mark the position of the bearing and they must stay in place where they are fixed until we finish the whole process of bearing replacement.



22. Remove the spindle-pushing screw (but not the bottom cylinder or the clamping nuts on it) and turn the tool upside-down again.

Pushing out the bearing from a patient hard drive

23. Use the needle-screw on the upper cylinder to push out the bearing from a patent hard drive.



In most of the cases, only the spindle comes out and not the whole bearing. If only the spindle comes out, use “the puller” to pull out the bearing casing.



Using “the puller”

a) Pull out the needle from the bearing by unscrewing the needle-screw in the upper cylinder. Also, remove the bottom cylinder (be sure that the clamping nuts on it don’t move).

b) Place “the puller” in the bearing casing through the bottom hole on the tool. Push “the puller” all the way through.



c) Screw the needle-screw again while holding “the puller” by hand from the bottom side. When you feel that the needle started pushing “the puller”, provide light counter-force so that “the puller” grips the bearing casing.

d) Screw the bottom cylinder again, and then screw the needle-screw to push out the bearing casing. After this, unscrew the needle-screw to pull the needle out, and unscrew the bottom cylinder along with clamping nuts (make sure not to move the clamping nuts).

Placing the donor bearing in a patient hard drive

24. Place donor bearing in the cocoon, and then place the cocoon with bearing in the bottom cylinder.

25. Screw the bottom cylinder with cocoon and bearing by hand to ensure that the bearing goes straight. Push the bearing this way until the cocoon hits the bottom of the hard drive. When this happens, unscrew the bottom cylinder and remove the cocoon from it.



26. Turn the tool upside down and apply super glue to the visible part of the bearing.



27. Screw the bottom cylinder again (without the cocoon) until it hits the bottom of the tool with its fixed clamping nut.

28. Screw the spindle-pushing screw to push the bearing to its place. Screw this screw until it hits the clamping nut that marks the height of the previously removed bearing. This way we will place the donor bearing at the same position where the patient bearing was.



Dismounting patient hard drive from the tool

29. Wait some time needed for the glue to affix the bearing to the hard drive casing and then remove the spindle-pushing screw and remove the bottom cylinder.



30. Turn the tool upside-down and unscrew the screws connecting the upper cylinder with the platter holder.



31. Unscrew the upper cylinder and then unscrew the butterfly-screws holding the hard drive in place.



32. Pull out the hard drive from the tool, unscrew the 4 screws holding the platter holder and remove the platter holder. Screw those 4 screws back in place. Place the lid back on the hard drive and start cloning the drive.

You can find more information about this tool and many other tools used for data recovery on our website.

http://www.hddsurgery.com/

Also you can watch the videos that show how this tool works on our YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HddSurgery

All comments and suggestions are welcome!!!

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HddSurgery - Professional Data Recovery Tools

Congratulations Nikola, it's a fantastic piece of engineering - as we have come to expect from you! Don't know how you have the time to do this stuff but your skills are second-to-none in this area.

I know a number of guys running this tool and it is getting great reviews.

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Data Recovery Ireland

Thank You, there is a little team doing this, we all put a lot of effort.
It is our success , we all put a lot of time in it. We try to make a solution not just a tool.

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HddSurgery - Professional Data Recovery Tools

The tool works fine; keep up the good work Nikola !

Dobre

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

We have the tool since some time, so I would want to give some back feed to all of you who want to have it.
First of all I want to mention the build quality. It's perfect honestly, I have tried to find some "weak points" but all was perfect made. We have have the head exchange tool and this was not surprise for us
As far as the tool is made to do some work, and not to stay in the exhibition room I think will be better to share some working experience.
The tool is working fine but the correct steps must be followed 1:1. And most important step 13 and 14 are critical for successful recovery. The screws must be tighten enough!
Although Nikola said that the tool is only for .10 and .11 Seagate we had tested it with older models from .8 up to .10 and want to pay your attention that the older models (.8 and .9) have 3 type of spindle and the tool can work with two of them. They differ in hight and diameter. The one that is bigger in diameter is not possible to be used with the tool.

Samuil Karakashev

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DataRecovery.bg

I join to all statements.
Nikola did a very good tool again, traditionaly

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Angel Data Recovery

I agree with Samo.
You should follow all steps in the manual to get the best results.

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

thanks guys, it means a lot to us

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HddSurgery - Professional Data Recovery Tools

I have received Spindle Tool yesterday. After some tests in morning on some dummy drives I try on an actual 7200.11 case I have. I get 100% image after replace bad bearing.

It takes some getting used to, but after a few practice runs is pretty straight forward and works great.

As always Nikola, great job