I have one of these 20 year old drive drives for recovery. I did have a donor, but didn't do a good job removing the heads so wanted some advice before attempting another swap.
This issue is that I cannot remove the black plastic stop under the VC with the heads in place (lower left). The heads do not come off the platter before the upper part of the stop hits the head. The stop can be rocked downwards allowing the heads to pass, but it puts a strain on the heads so they do not come off the platter cleanly. The lower VC can't be removed for the same reason.
What am i missing here....
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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data RecoveryFounder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group