I've got a drive in from a client that on power up starts giving a good ole clack-clack-clack routine, so at this point I'm going with a head failure ( noises match up nicely to other recorded head-failure noises from the same species ).

Anyhow, the failed/patient drive is a MK5065GSXN (UL01) unit. The closest donor drive I have here in my stash is a MK5065GSX (note the lack of 'N'). Interestingly they both use the same controller board ( MDK339V-0W ).

Beyond that, here's the downers, I don't [yet] have anything close to resembling a clean room and I don't have any head combs.

I suppose realistically I should just leave it alone until I can satisfy both those unmet requirements. I saw some nice machined head combs, but at Eur.400 for the set it kind of hurts for this one off job for now.

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I've uploaded a sound file of the noise it's making - in case some experts are interested in listening.

http://dxp.me/i/toshiba-500G.3ga

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Hi

Since you do not have clean facilities, then the combs would be useless to you.
Also, it is not fair to experiment on live customer drives. Chances are you will screw their data permenantly.
If you want to start working on hardware level recovery, then get the equipment and then a nice stack of useless/failing/failed/unimportant drives and experiment on them. When you feel 100% sure about yourself, then start working on client drives.

PS. Yes the sound points to damaged heads.

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I wouldn't be doing any experimenting on the client's drive. Fortunately for me I have a box of about 100 existing failed drives that I can hone my initial skills on.



Thanks. I've already informed the client at this point that they just need to keep the drive safe somewhere until they can afford a cleanroom recovery service.

Thus far I'm looking at ~$25k for a new 4x3m portable room kitted out as a clean room ( $8k for the room, $16k for the filtration ). Might be a couple of years before I get that done

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