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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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Help with HD after Head Assembly Transfer

January 13th, 2007, 19:48

Hello everyone,

I could use some more help from you experts.
I have a WD 153 AA Western Digital HD. The Drive was clicking(head arm moving back and forth qickly) and I first tried swapping the PCB with a compatible model, then after that did not show any changes I performed a Head assembly transplant.
The Head transplant went well; with this I mean I was able to transfer a good HDA to the faulty drive without breaking or bending the heads.
The drive doen't make the clicking any more, but now it makes a fast not so loud and deeper clacking sound. The drive spins up and the Heads are at the landing area. I tried adjusting the screw which put's the pressure on the arm but this did not resolve my problem. I also tried a identical PCB after head transplant, but this also made no difference.
I think heads and preamp are intakt. So I really don't know what the problem is. :cry: :cry:

Could you guys please give me some help with this.

Thanks :lol:

January 14th, 2007, 11:56

Try sticking a screwdriver on the hole were the lid screw goes in, and applying sideways pressure at varying angles.

It is useful if you can be running PC3000 at the same time, so you can seen when/if the drive becomes ready.

I had a similar problem with a WD200EB, I did this till it became ready, so I knew that the heads were OK.

Then I replaced the screw and gradually tightened it untill the drive calibrated and became ready. I was then able to image the drive 100%.

I did have to recalibrate the drive with this procedure about 6 times during the imaging.

Slow work, but result is worth it!

Hope this helps

January 16th, 2007, 12:57

hmm, I tried this and I still can't get the drive to properly recalibate.
I also tried a second screw. This damm WD drive is causing me to lose my nerves.
Do you have any other ideas???
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