Samsung S2 320 GB Portable - help identifying problem

[Cornholio]

Hi,

Some day my HDD (Samsung S2 portable 320 GB) stopped being detected. I've tried to recover the data trying:
- soldering directly onto the HDD PCB SATA "terminals", - no result
- swapping the PCB from a working second identical drive I've bought - no result
- today I swapped the heads - no result - disc acts just like before swapping.

I posted a short movie with the cover open documenting the disk behavior.

https://youtu.be/JuoK2c9DwiM

Can you please tell me what is the cause of the behavior and is there a way to recover any data?

Regards from the great Bungholio.

[mr_spokk]

Not the best thing to power on the drive with lid off, and no cleanroom environment
Could be incompatible heads, bad surface....I can hear a high pitch note.
Take it to a pro if data is important.

[Cornholio]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, i know that it's a bad idea to open the HDD not in a clean room, but i consider those drives garbage so I'm just giving a try..

The data is not as important to pay the price for a pro recovery.

Regarding the head compatibility i really doubt that this could be an issue because firstly the drives are identical and secondly the head in the broken HDD before swapping behaved exactly the same.

So I think that now only a plate failure could be left and that means there is no way to recover the data at home.

What do you think?

[labtech]

How do you think the bad drive failed?