Hello,

I have a WD drive with a scratch in the inner circle (I belive SA or track zero), caused by a head crash. Is there anything I can do to recover the data? I swapped HDA, but that did not help. I tried cleaning the top platter, but that did not help. I know that there is little that I can do. Any suggestions of what else I could try to recover the data?

Thanks

I have the same problem, mine WD5000AAKB the scrtach is located middle close to center hub (see the attached picture)

The drive is trying to calibrate but after few attempts , it shut off the power.

Any ideas?

Hy terranova did u check for magnetic dust? that models WD500AAKS and KS are tendence to head crash, unfortunely, wich damage media and left magnetic dust over platters

Terra Nova, I have the same behavior with this drive:cry:

Alberto, do you have any magic for recovery

The strange thing is i manage to do head exchange and could see the files, but when trying to copy it failed, now it wont calibrate. and another head exchange attempt failed as well.

sounds like the head broke because of the scratch in the surface.
You could try to image each head individually and see how far you can get.

Is it just a small scratch or an entire track?

Hello quasimodo unfortunely no , when the hdd got surface damaged. most times left magnetic dust over platters, wich could change the "field" or " flux" from the media , even its impossible to get data even using magic machines like " MFM or STM, technology" also im know Ontrack return that cases like unrecoverable , there are no way, because u know some times the head crash damaged the magnetic layer coating, and there are no real way to return the original coating