Hello,

I have been researching into physical data recovery over the last few weeks for a project I am working on at university (college in the US).

I have quite a good grasp on the idea of platter swapping, head stack moving etc. however I have a couple of questions I cannot find the answer to:

1. If a platter swap was carried out on a drive, and the platters where placed into an identical drive, DCM, serials and all, would their be problems with the PCB? This is based on my understanding of the P and G list, would the EEPROM from the PCB of the original drive need to be placed onto the donor drive that now contains the platters?

2. Very similar to my first question, if the PCB was fried and was swapped out with an identical PCB from a donor drive, would the EEPROM from the original drive need to be placed onto the donor PCB?

3. Is the SA layer on the platter linked in some way to the firmware on the PCB, or does it not really matter?

I suppose all my questions basically ask the same question, are the platters and PCB linked in a unique way?

I hope I am not diving too far into "trade secrets" and I apologise if I am.

Kind Regards.

Hi,

It is hard to answer to you, because you are missing a lot of knowledge, but i try:

1. This is the worst, read this if you want more info:
results-the-yourself-solutions-t11912.html?hilit=result%20yourself

2. Yes, but some PCB have internal ROM in the MCU.

3. Yes, the FW part in the PCB have information about the SA area location, wich is different on models, and sometimes in one modell too.

4. close to the true

Janos

Thanks a lot N.C. really good info on that thread you linked me to! As I say, I am learning this as I go so sorry if i'm a little newbie.

A particular area of the "DIY" thread sparked my interest however, read head alignment. This is something I have never encounter, via my tutors or otherwise. I have researched a little further and find that this is most common in WD drives.

I'm not sure how to pose this, but in what way are they aligned, vertically, horizontally or based on a location on the platters?

I don't expect answers on a plate, as I will not learn that way, but anymore links or light you can shed on this would be really great!

Again, if it is not somthing your willing to dicuss I understand this totally.

Thanks a lot so far!

Kind Regards.

Hi,

I suppose we are getting deeper into the trade secret category here

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

You should be able to glean this info by reading past threads in the forum. Some of it is pretty basic and has been gone over in umpteen bajillion threads.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.