At home repair possible?

[studioguy38]

I have a Western Digital hard drive that I used to use for backing up data. About two years ago it crashed.

It has the dreaded clicking sound so its obviously a physical repair issue.

I don't want to send it into a pro shop as it has personal data on it. I need a solution. At my business, house, rented clean room... doesn't matter. I need it fixed and the data back on a stable drive.

I have no experienced with repairing drives. I know my way around drives but simply have never done a repair.

Thanks for any help or suggestions guys.

[dmarques]

Hi,

One things is confusing me. You need your data, but you don't want to send it to a DR company, has you have personal data inside?
Well, all the drives we receive in DR companies have personal data inside, and most of the DR companies offer NDA's for the case. I don't think that's a problem.

[irs]

Hi,
I totally agree with Dmarques about privacy ... And i'd like to add that cleanroom is not enough to repair a drive you'll need correct diagnose, donors, and professional tools and above all informations and practice.

Western digital are not the best drives to start with due to their complexity.
Bye
Luca

[BlackST]

@studioguy38

You can rent a clean bench, maybe even the HW+SW complex equipment required for analyze and eventually repair the drive and the cloning gear (and I am not even sure about this, but in theory it can be) but you can't rent the know how to do it neither one of us is even thinking about guiding you step by step remotely. You can HIRE someone with all this to do the job for you, either at their or your premises but this depends on what you are willing to spend and on their willing to do it.

Seriously, it seems a situation like needing a complete checkup without wanting to be examined by 3rd person / other to see you. Then either you can do your own diagnose (and don't need 3rd party), or it's impossible. PERIOD.

If absolute privacy is needed , it is not a concern as long as you refer to serious people (that should not be interested in what's inside the drive).
Unless there are other more stringent security issues that must be discussed with the person / company you will give the job to.

If you pay a lot (I mean A LOT A LOT ) maybe someone will move the necessary equipment and do the recovery at your home / company. When and if it's necessary, it's necessary but everything has a price and these case mean a very high price.

[irs]

i got also a portable clean bench $$$$$$

[dmarques]

I can set it up and drive to Canada if the situation is worth it

You have some good professionals in your country. If you want, I can recommend you at least 2 of them.

[CK]

Non Disclosure Agreements are designed exactly for situations like this. Everybody has personal and confidential data. All professional data recovery companies are well versed in handling these situations. Unless the material is of an illegal nature, you have nothing to worry about. Choose a reputable company and discuss your situation with them as this is most definitely NOT a DIY job.

[fzabkar]

What is your model number?

Some models, eg the WD5000AAKS, are well known (amongst the data recovery profession) for problems that appear to be media or head related but are actually PCB faults. If yours is one of these, and if you can find someone to reprogram a donor PCB for you, then the repair will be a simple DIY job. Some board suppliers will include such a service for free.

In the meantime, try cleaning the preamp pads on the PCB with a soft white pencil eraser, or polish them up with a cotton bud and metal polish (eg Brasso). I haven't used the latter on HDDs, but it works well on oxidised pre-RoHS boards.

[BlackST]

Reprogramming the "donor" PCB requires PATIENT disk working heads AND working firmware and the drive has to be sent and it's not a 50 neither 100 $ work, it's much much more. The more the damage to the FW the higher the price.
Same if the problem is on patient firmware.

If it's heads, this is one of the worst drives to work with.

Would be nice if it turns out (?) to be a minor problem, but according to the scenario in case of "no joy" if data is really needed it's time to consider digging in the pockets.

[jono-ats]

If it's heads, this is one of the worst drives to work with.

We work on AAKS / AAJS drives daily. Once you get the hang of them, they're not bad to work with. OTOH, it's a completely different situation with KS models.

What do you consider to be especially irksome about this series?

[BlackST]

Jono, simply the usual problems with WDs adding up the fact that 90% of drives coming in are physically damaged or already almost destroyed by users and their fantatech friends. Ah the old times...

Anyway THIS case is not for average joe less than less if no specialized tools are available (for joe...).

By the way, what drive are we talking about ? Didn't read about the actual model of WD that has crashed...

[jono-ats]

Jono, simply the usual problems with WDs adding up the fact that 90% of drives coming in are physically damaged or already almost destroyed by users and their fantatech friends. Ah the old times...

Anyway THIS case is not for average joe less than less if no specialized tools are available (for joe...).

By the way, what drive are we talking about ? Didn't read about the actual model of WD that has crashed...

I agree that we see a lot of WD drives with media damage . . . and that they require special tools and experience to fix. Gravity is usual;y the culprit.

We're discussing the Royal Tornado series and their close cousins. Not the wooly Mammoths or the swearing at Zeus series . . .

[BlackST]

No I meant this drive. What is ?

[jono-ats]

Oops! I thought we were talking about WD5000AAKS from another poster's remark.

The OP will have to answer this question.

[unknown]

I think that WD5000AAKSs (2heads) are much easier than old WD5000KSs.

[BlackST]

Easy or not, it's definitely not DIY and difficult to have at home.

[lcoughey]

Without proper diagnosis and drive details, I don't think anyone here can honestly speculate exactly what your problem is, let alone provide the necessary information on how to recover the data yourself. My guess is, you are not likely to be able to recover the data at your home.

If your data is important to you and has a value of $500 or more, then it is well worth getting the free assessment by a data recovery professional before you attempt DIY efforts and render your data completely unrecoverable, assuming that it is in a recoverable state now.

[unknown]

Easy or not, it's definitely not DIY and difficult to have at home.

What I meant sir ( It's much easier for a PRO to handle a heads swap not for a newbie ).