Hello, I'm trying to recover data from an 80Gb Seagate laptop HD, it's details are:

Seagate Momentus 5400.3 80Gb
SN 5LY03RXJ
ST980815A
PN: 9S1038-506
FW 3.ALC
Date: 07025
Site: WU

It's not recognized by BIOS or MHDD. It spins, and the heads move freely across the single platter. When powered up, usually the heads seem to seek 5 times. Then at regular intervals, the heads move from the outer edge to the inner edge (outer cylinder to inner cylinder) and back.

I suspect it must be either a board failure, or head assembly failure. I'm trying to find a HD with interchangeable parts. Drives with PN 9S1038-308 with FW 3.ALD seem easy to find. Can anyone tell me if these would be a close enough match? (for a PCB and/or head assembly swap) I've searched the net and HDDGURU forums, and cannot seem to find a Seagate part swap guideline.

Thank you very much for your time!
hdamateur

Hi,
For Pcb change, look here: post47071.html?hilit=seagate%20pcb%20match#p47071
For head change you need to match Model, FW, Sitecode.

Regards

Bosse

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

Did a head exchange on seagate momentus its not easy job u could be finalize with
AM Recquired ... On first u should be get the terminal log, before did the heads swap of course making the job on a clean room , after did the head swap, im think that , on my cases , if u said, the hdd its spin up and the heads move & back forward trying to read something u have big troubles, seagate momentus, in some cases have bad media, and rom corruption u should be check that. like i said on first seagate momentus its not easy work . Even seagate DR its returning this hdd´s , the ony who said they can recover this cases are Data clinic, what does u suggest friends starling ,DF did u sucess with this cases ?


Best Regards

Alberto

Board failures on these are rare.

Most likely problem is failed heads.

Second most likely is bad firmware.

Third most likely is SA damage on the platters.

Second and third likelihood is close together.


Duncan Clarke
Retrodata

I've been looking for drives with same "PN" (i.e. model) and same "FW" (and sitecode, although, if the PN and FW match, I'm not sure why the manufacturing site matters, but I'll trust the experts) to attempt a board swap, and then a head swap. If neither of those work, then problem most likely lies in SA region of platters (correct?).

So, by my way of thinking, if MHDD continues to state "drive not ready" when I press F2, after swapping the pcb and then head, then the SA area is to blame. If that is the case, and MHDD cannot get any info from the drive, then SA repairs would require advanced equipment like PC3000? And, without a significant cash investment, there is little more i can do. Am I correct in thinking this?

Thank you!

u not only need equipment or tools like PC3000, HRT, u need understand´s the HDD Engineering of every brand´s thats not easy job, its the years of work with hdd´s studying and analzing how works called from some people " experience" and this u can bought on a equipment

Read my post hard-disk-drives-repair-and-data-recovery-f1/newbie-info-from-and-for-newbies-about-firmware-sa-etc-t6562.html

Best Regards

Thank you all very much for your time and info; it is appreciated. When (and if) I find the parts, I'll post my results.

hdamateur