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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Western Digital DCM terminology question : Media = Platter ?

April 9th, 2015, 11:11

Hello,

Does anyone know which is the signification of the "Media" in the Drive Configuration Matrix (DCM) from Western Digital drives ?
1- Motor (H)
2- Base (S)
3- Latch (E)
4- Bottom VCM (H)
5- Media (Y)
6- Headstack (V)
7- Actuator-Preamp (2)
8- Top VCM (A)
9- Separator (H)

Given a DCM of HACTJABB for instance, there is a very large palette of matching drive capacities, typically 80 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB, 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB.

According to the list above, all those drives would have the same media ...

Does "Media" just mean "Platter" without taking into account the number of platters, nor the data density ?

Thanks.

Re: Western Digital DCM terminology question : Media = Platt

April 9th, 2015, 16:01

I don't think it works like that. I'm pretty sure the DCM letters only apply within the same model (possibly family) hard drive. So of you have a WD5000LMVW-11VEDS0 and a WD3200LMVW-11VEDS0 with matching headstack letter in DCM (a J based on your DCM) it's likely the same heads with either one head turned off (possibly failed) in the 320Gb model or the LBA reduced due to a larger number of unusable tracks on the media.
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