I've always had the understanding that model and site code matching are crucial. Yet I've had instances where a drive is identical in every possible way on the label, yet the head mapping is different. Then I've had jobs where everything matches except the site code and the recovery is still possible.

Just had another good example of this today...

Patient:
1TB FreeAgent
ST1000LM010
Site: SU
FW: CC9F

Donor:
1TB FreeAgent
ST1000LM010
Site: TK
FW: CC9F

I could understand compatibility between SU and WU, but I've noticed more and more that it seems to be Model and Firmware that are of primary concern. Anyone else see this correlation?

Shouldn't you be looking at the first 3 characters in the serial number?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Newer drives don't seem too concerned with manufacture site, and in this case the first digit in SN would have been different.

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PC Image Data Recovery
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Am I right in saying that the first character identifies the manufacturing site, the second the type of platter, and the third the number of heads? I'm reasonably confident of the first and third characters, but the meaning of the second character is just a guess.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I have no "inside info", only my observations to go by but...

First character seems to be Site code (e.g. 5=WU 6=SU)
Second could be type preamp/head type, but not 100% sure
Third seems to be number of heads in use (e.g. in 5400.6 drives xxCxx=2 heads(250Gb), xxDxx=3 heads(320GB) and xxExx=4 heads(500Gb))

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PC Image Data Recovery
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New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

In F3 Seagates I have never found site code to be part of the matching criteria, have done many successful head swaps with donor heads from different site.

Here's an example of different model, site, and firmware.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25984

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Also, there are new/newer Seagates that start with W1F, yet site is SU.
You draw your own conclusion.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I did some investigating in the past ...

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/seagate_sernum.txt

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I think that those that change heads on a daily basis, know that there really is no dark art to donor matching and as PCImage says, it's all about observation.... I myself have used heads from drives that are over a year apart date wise and from different families and manufacturing sites, and have still had good results.....

I think we all have a rule of thumb (and certain techniques) that we apply when matching these, as we all learnt long ago, you can chase numbers and have the best possible 'Match'...and still fail dismally...

There is no real substitute for experience when it comes to tackling drives mechanically... (and also logically...but that's another story)...

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East Anglian Data Recovery Services
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Oh this isn't the first time I've brought up the issue about matching parts...or how the lack of a match seems to work in many cases. I was just curious if we could finally shelve the idea that Site Code or other parameters have to match. Same way with Western Digital drives. I've had heads out of a 500GB drive work in a 640GB drive. When I can't find parts, I usually end up experimenting and find drives that don't match on paper, are actually perfectly compatible.

If anyone has replaced the arm of a seagate hdd for a 2.5 inch hd, is it possible to get in touch with u please? Nick_ct?
My hdd just started clicking and not being recognised on the computer.
Thank you!