Toshiba Donor Drives - Matching Drives

[drnkbeer]

Hi guys,
I've been doing drive recovery and drive repairs for a little while now, but weirdly had never encountered a Toshiba drive with any real issues apart from stuck heads, but I've been given one to look at, a model MQ01ABD100.

It's powering up, and where it should be whirring it sounds like it's trying to rev up but only moving a little ( haven't opened it yet). I figure it's probably the drive motor, which I figure is a case for swapping the whole thing out into a new drive and swapping PCB.

I'm just wondering how much leeway you get with Toshiba drives in regards to matching up Model, Revisions and Firmware, I've scoured the web and this forum seems to be the place to ask. Any advice?

Drive Rev- ABM AB00 / AX1P5E
Date-07Dec2015
S/N- Z572PJ1HT 80A HDKGB20M5A01 T

Cheers,

[pcimage]

Sounds like it could be stuck heads to me.

[drnkbeer]

Sounds like it could be stuck heads to me.

Finally had a spare day this weekend to look at it, and yep the heads were stuck on the outer part of the platter, it's just the noise wasn't familiar to me, so I thought motor, but you're right.
I carefully moved them off, but either I've taken the heads out of alignment (maybe but I wouldn't think so), the actuator is dead (hence why it seized up in the first place) or something else as the heads just vibrate but the arm makes no effort to move to read the platters.

[Blizzard]

IMO the heads should always be removed and checked under a microscope in a stiction case. You can sometimes use a magnifying glass to verify all the sliders are present, but you can't always tell if the suspension is bent. If the suspension is damaged considerably you may be lucky and the heads won't leave the ramp, saving you from severe platter damage. In most cases they will leave the ramp and then, at a minimum, the sliders will toe or heel the surface, even if they still read, causing media damage. In the worst case, the metal suspension will scrape the platters.