Do you know if its possible to get a head map from a Toshiba MK3263GSX through PC3K? I have just got a donor drive for a head swap and the physical heads map of the patient is 0,1,3, but the donor was 0,1,2. The only place I can find heads details is the Zone Allocation Table, but presume they are logical heads.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

If you can upload the donor and patient ROMs, I could have a look for you.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Many thanks but through PC3K is how I want to achieve it if possible. I need to order a donor drive with 0,1,3 head map and suppliers like DonorDrives etc are able to check on PC3K before ordering. I think asking them to send me a load of ROM's might be a last resort.

But many thanks and it may be an option.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

I'm assuming that the ROM would store the head map in a CP. If so, then comparing the CPs might enable us to determine which CP is the appropriate one, if any. Then all you would need to do would be to examine that particular CP.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

There are 53 CP's on this drive so not that easy.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

There are two ways. The easiest is to look for a 5065GSX which has all heads installed.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

+1

Thanks everyone. Good information.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

I have examined every (?) byte in the CPs of an earlier Toshiba family and I haven't been able to find anything that looks like a typical head map.

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?t=2044

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Wow, great work

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

I compared the CPs from two MK6021GAS drives. I notice that the 3rd head in one drive has certain physical parameters which deviate significantly from the average. This is evident in the WC (CP 0x33), SH and HP CPs. (SH and HP are components of CP 0xBB.)

I'm wondering whether transferring these adaptive data from the donor to the patient would improve data recovery outcomes after a head swap.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

+1 ,
But its worth experimenting with the observation of frank is indeed that data is adaptive data to facilitate better head swaps

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com