WD5000BPVT Scorpio Blue Head Compatibility

[gtd4242]

I only post this as a reference to others who may come across similar issues. I've done this for other cases in the past.

I had a WD5000BPVT-00HXZT3 come in. The drive had been dropped and it looked like they might have tried powering it back up, because Head 0 was sheared off, and was stuck to the upper platter. Luckily for them, the top platter was not used, so it didn't cause any further damage.

These drives are usually pretty straight forward, so I ordered a parts drive...exact same model, exact same DCM, and the manufacturing date was less than 6 weeks apart. Patient drive has Head 0, 1, and 2...no head for the top platter. Parts drive comes in...with Head 1, 2 and 3...no Head 0.

So I look through all of my parts drives again...I had just killed most of my 500GB parts drives on a case that had a damaged platter surface. Anyway, I see a 640GB drive and none of the drive parameters match up at all, but I know it will have all 4 heads. I check the heads, and physically they are a good match. I've done similar swaps befor, with drives that don't appear to be a good match on paper, but none that were this far off.

Patient
Model: WD5000BPVT-00HXZT3
DCM: HHOTJHB
Date: Oct 21 2011

New Parts Drive
Model: WD6400BEVT-80A0RT0
DCM: HACVJBB
Date: Oct 27 2010

Worked flawlessly. Calibrated immediately and is just blazing through the imaging process as I type this. Hopefully this bit of info will help others as well.

[labtech]

If you have DDI product, put in the head exchange experience section.

Thanks for sharing