Hi there, first hard-disk crash and first post here in the forum.

I have got a defect (click of death) Toshiba MK7559GSXP from Thailand. I'd like to try a heads change but unfortunately I cannot lay my hands on a suitable donor (my ebay buys are either defect too or they turn out to be from the Philippines or China). According to the very nice page here the country is the only parameter that counts for a head stack replacement in that particular drive.

Now my question:

I have a brand new drive from China. If I change the heads AND the pcb: wouldn't that amount to a probably working drive? Like a platters change just the other way around? Am I making sense?

Thanks A LOT for your comments.

Yours, Lars

Honestly, unless you have actual data recovery experience and proper tools it's pretty much a 100% chance that you will not end up with a working drive.

Toshiba PCB's are not cross compatible ever. There is drive specific adaptive data stored in configuration pages stored withing a ROM chip on the board. As far as the heads being compatible, post a picture of both drives and we can get a better idea of whether they might match. However I'd highly recommend you try a few head replacements on drives that don't contain any data before you even think of trying it on one you want data back from.

You will destroy your first several drives you attempt to head swap. Everyone kills the first few, everyone!

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

+1
if the data is important i would highly recommend to send it to a pro

Hi Lars,

why do you want to try a hdd repair / headswap? What happened to the drive (was it dropped)? Are you sure it's a heads problem?

Do you have any tools at hand to deal with other problems that might arise after a headswap like firmware-issues, media-damage, slow-reading heads? Do you have tools for a headswap and access to a clean room where you can do it safely? Any experience with harddrive repairs so far?

For donor matching you can also look here but there are many opinions what has to match exactly.

If the data is important do not play with it, if you can not afford a pro wait with it. There are so many lost cases because ppl try erverything they see on youtube .

Best regards,

_________________
030 Datenrettung Berlin GmbH (Germany)
HDD, SSD, NAS, RAID Datenrettung - 030-datenrettung.de

Hi Folks,

thanks for your advices, be sure that I really appreciate them BUT I really considered the consequences implied and the resources I have at hand.

The consequences I am aware of

(1) a total data loss is possible (I have already done some two weeks of gravest and grievest mourning work)
(2) there is no worst case beyond (1)

The resources I have are

(1) A clean bench (for microbiological work, so dust and particles should be negligible)
(2) A 3D printed head replacement tool designed for my drive (very much like the ones available for some 500 $$)
(3) a lot of determination.

For practicing I ordered and received these drives (both are not in working order, so I'll just use them to practice my skill at interchanging heads and taking the measurements for the head replacement tool):


This is the (important source) drive in question:



and this is the one I just received in working order (the one from which I'd like to transplant the head assembly and the pcbs to the source drive):


What do you think? Possible?
So now I would really appreciate some help concerning data recovery considering the tools I mentioned above.
THANKS

if they are in non working condition, how will you know if you succeeded ?

you noticed that they are from different countries ?

you have been told already by data-medics above, a complete transfer of PCB is not possible

it's not about the tools, it's about the guy behind them, everyone can buy tools, but doing it successfully it's different matter

All right, I see I am misunderstood.

Yes, I noticed the different countries, that's exactly why I posed my question.

Let me try it the other way around:
Can a platter THEORETICALLY be read by heads from a different country (as the producing country is the critical point in these toshiba 2.5"s)?

N.B.: I am not speaking of practicability, even less my personal capability just of the theoretical possibility.


I just used them to practice the handling of this type of drives and I took measurements for my rapid prototyped head change tool. They weren't supposed to act as donors.

Yes I read that. However, that doesn't answer the question if a change of the PCB plus the heads assembly would work.

To keep this discussion going, just act like I'd be able to pull this off.