Summary:
-Owner feedback drive was accidentally knock and dropped to the floor while in use. Height about 1.5ft.
-Didn't noticed the drive was unable to detect in laptop till the next moment of use.
-Buzzing sound was heard upon connected to her laptop, drive failed to detect..
-Trying out her dad laptop, her younger brother PC but still the same result..
-Contacted and passed me the drive..

Observation:
-Similar symptoms as described above.
-Power on once and OFF immediately to prevent further damage..
-Drive still within warranty till Sept 28 2017.

Follow-up:
-Feedback to the owner, issue likely due to the MR Head touch down with the disk surface..
-Might need to open up the top up for further verification..
-Warranty might void as one of the screw was under the label..
-Advised to the owner to consider if needed to recover the data before proceeding RMA or proceed for RMA as of now. Owner haven't get back as of today..
-Drive utilization was about 850GB / 1TB capacity..

Beside Head/Disk interference, any possibility from you guys?

Beside the head stuck on the disk surface, is there any other possibility? Thanks

Yes ....

Besides "that" there are the chances of :

1) Media damage.
2) Head(s) damage.

So ... send the drive in to a proper data recovery center (and not an ordinary coputer repair shop) and DO NOT OPEN THE DRIVE YOURSELF ON OPEN AIR !!!

Also goes without saying .... unless you use a data recovery firm that have some sort of partnership with hard drive makers you will not be able to RMA the drive if you open it up ...

And the S.M.A.R.T. will store value for G-Sensor shock counter so .... drive maker will know that the drive was dropped and they might not send you in another replacement as the warranty will not cover user mistakes and bad use .... Don't expect for them to replace your drive if you damage it yourself !!!Warranty only covers defective products and not products that you damage yourself.

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Thanks for the reply Spildit. Point Noted.

Owner feedback that would like to proceed for data recovery and she's aware of the warranty void. Will update the progress of this issue later.

Ok ! Please do let us know how it ended up ....

Also if you are "new" to data recovery please never forget about this - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=1427

Sometimes it's very important to know when to quit and outsource the drive to someone with better tools and more experience ....

Regards.

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The head was indeed stuck at the disk surface after the top cover was opened. I'm using the anti-clockwise with a slight knock at the end of the head stack assembly slowly return the head to the ramp. Noticed a small white dent at the disk surface.

Drive was able to get ready. A "format disk" message shown up after power up the drive. Windows chkdsk was able to fixed the "format disk" error messages.

Owner data was intact with about 880GB. The internal drive was a Samsung M8BP2 series. Noticed the load/unload cycle count increased significantly.

Running checkdisk without imaging a drive first is a very bad idea.



He/She is very lucky.
I always wonder why people are playing with others' data. Homemade DR experts with perfectly no experience and knowledge on the field, not to mention the required tools are recovering customer data. It's not that i was envy or something but this is not responsible handling of client media.
my 10c he/she had no idea you would disassemble his/her disk drive...

I am also stunned by the amount of homemade DR experts, asking questions as if they were the owners desperately seeking help.
It's a nice idea to help out somebody with getting his data back back. Yes, that's kind. But when it turns out somebody else is making money on my 'FreeHelpToAPoorGuyWhoHasHisHardDiskNotResponding', well, that lacks any ethics IMO.
This is not the first case when 'it looks like another poor folk lost his data' then it turns out it's perfectly not the case, it's a homemade tech making a few bucks by hazarding somebody else's data...
Yeah, i hear what's gonna be said, you just helped out a friend....

just a link:http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11912

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery
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It annoys me that the client is given the choice of voiding the warranty if "Joe Tech" makes his DIY attempt. But, they aren't also warned that anything that Joe Tech does is usually irreversible and usually destructive to the recoverability of the client's data.

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Luke
RAID Data Recovery

1). Owner did verbally informed earlier before open up the top cover and let her know the consequences (warranty void as one of the screw was underneath the label), let her to decide between her data integrity and RMA to get a new replacement unit. She decided and ask to proceed. I WILL NOT proceed further if owner decision is to stop the action!

2). Above top cover opening was done with the laminar flow condition.

3). chkdsk (to check if able to repair by windows) was performed only after the Data was successfully migrated to the spare drive.

- I can see dust particles on your 2nd picture. If a laminar flow workbench was used then it's not properly filtering air particles or it's not HEPA100 (at least) as dust is clear visible on your picture.

- You stated that you get a format message that you fixed with checkdisk. How did you migrate the data if all that you were getting was a format message ?

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Hello Spildit,

- I'm handling with glove and I believe those are not sticking dust/particle (highlighted in red), while the earlier white spot mark was caused by the head disc interaction. I will pay extra precaution and practice more x-swap exercises.

-Sorry that I didn't make it clear earlier, as soon as the drive was detected (but un-mountable in windows explorer) I'm using EaseUS to retrieve and migrated the data into my portable drive (not the best option!). The checkdisk command was the last option that I'm trying check if the drive was able to fix and mount to the explorer. Understand that checkdisk will reallocates some bad sectors and make it as unreadable (from my earlier Samsung HM321HX case). So after the data migration then I performing check disk to check if the drive was mountable in windows explorer.

Best regards

So the picture with the bare hands in the picture was taken after the recovery?

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

LOL