head swap on samsung hd40lj

[crecomp]

hi all

i have the above drive, initially the drive was completelty dead, no spin or anything, i found a diode on the pcb as a short, i replaced this diode and the drive came back to life, however, there is a scraping sound, i opened the drive and found that the top head is lifted and there is a small scratch right in the parking zone, which hopefully may not be to bad.

Ihave a dnor for this job but prior commencing the job am wondering if there is any point in eventrying the swap based on where the scratch is, i should post a icture but dont have my camera here right now.

if i do a head swap can i place a small stopper that will kep the head from going completely back into this parking area, i am thinking of placing a stopper to keep the heads just outside this area by a couple of mm. has anyone done this in the past and can comment

any feedback will be greatly apreciated

thank you

[BlackST]

Stopper = it will probably click. Also, there's the probability of damaged MC. It's worth a try anyway.

[Azurlake]

Hi, I've thought about that a few times. When the headcrash or the scratch is in the parking zone, there's no information there for the heads to be read... so it shouldn't be a fatal problem at first. However, they may need to get into the parking area to get a start reference, a zero-position. But don't really know, just didn't try it because for me, it didn't worth it (in that particular case). It will be interesting to know, before, if that park area is used for that reason, as a necessary reference. If it is not, I would try to build that stopper if I had the time.
One more thing, if you have any method to low-level access the hard drive, I'm pretty sure you may be able to edit the firmware to tell the headstack not to get into that area, although I don't know how to do it...

[BlackST]

Yes, azurlake. Completely agree. In effect I don't know about Samsungs and Hdd in general...

[Azurlake]

Hum, I've been thinking about it... instead of a stopper, I think it would be a better idea to build a lifter, so, the particular head on the damaged surface will not bend or break when trying to get into the parking zone. The headstack could reach the zero-position if it is needed, and it is possible to do the lifting rather smooth, isn't it?

[MANDR]

Stopper = it will probably click. Also, there's the probability of damaged MC. It's worth a try anyway.

Why do you say it will probably click? Is it still possible to access data when using a stopper?