I need to buy a working USED (not refurbished) WD1600JB-00GVA0 manufactored (between May and Sept of 2004 preferably) in Taiwan.

DCM must match HSBHCT2AA (2 may be a J, hard to tell from the writing). I need the heads from the unit to rebuild my crashed hard drive.

If anyone has one kicking around please post to me so I can arrange a possible purchase.

You're going to swap the heads yourself?

I'm presuming from your post that you are non-pro. If so then forget it, it ain't gonna happen!

Not being derogatory, but these particular drives are difficult for "pros" so an amateur has next to zero chance, sorry.

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You assume too much.

I am not attempting the head replacement myself... just trying to help the technician who is in charge of the job locate a 5 year old peice of hardware that probably lasted longer than most of it's siblings. We're going on 3 months of looking as is.

I am more than willing to admit that I'm way out of depth here... I'm just hoping that someone on these forums would have a spare drive somewhere because they took apart a computer at some point.

Until my hard drive crashed 3 months ago I didn't realise there was so much to it... I also didn't realise it's fairly common for hard drives to burn out without warning. I was stupid and uninformed.

If my boyfriend had taken the time to show me how to do a system backup like I asked for about 6 times in the month preceeding the crash I wouldn't be in this situation. I just want my data back.

I am a complete novice willing to listen to any advice anyone can give me... I took my hard drive to a place that is supposed to specialise in data recovery... and I'm going by what the technician there told me until I find a reason not to. My only reasonable assumption is that he should obviously know more than me.

I am not trying to be negative, but the fact that the technician is not able to locate a identical drive on his own questions his ability as well. The WD drives are tricky to work with. This isn't your run of the mill toshiba or hitachi head swap; WD are difficult for many pros; even after successfully performing many of these head swaps they are still dreaded.

Also, it has been said that the DCM is actually not very important for Head swapping. I have not checked this myself (no time nowadays!) but you should only need: WD1600JB-00GVA0

If you do try to match the DCM, only the 5th and 6th characters are said to be needed; in fact the 6th is the most important.

But again I have now heard rumors that the DCM actually is not needed at all.


If the data is very valuable; I would not use a DR company that is asking you to find a donor HDD. (donor is an identical disk for replacement parts)

If you are not sure of where to go, someone on these forums may be able to help you; many of the active posters on these forums are DR professionals who come here to give assistance, and share knowledge.

The technician didn't ask me to go looking for the spare parts. I got tired of waiting, and hoped that I might have a better chance of finding it myself. He's got other clients to worry about... I'm just looking for me.

He did order a donor HD off E-bay but the drive sent was not the one pictured. (I'm sure that'll cost me $150). If he is operating under the misguided notion that the DCM and manufactor dates are important then he's just slowing this whole process down.

Yes, unfortunately finding donor HDD is sometimes the hardest part of the job. If there is a drive to be found; i'm sure one of the members of this forum that specialize in selling donor hdd will contact you via PM pretty soon. In the meantime I will see what I can find for you. No promises though.

I don't want to discredit the DR guy you are working with as I don't even know who it is but I sure see a few red flags here.
With most DR companies, typically
1: the client does not usually pay for the donor drives. It is included in the price of the job. If he got the wrong one from ebay, it should not be at your expense.
2: Most DR companies don't order donor drives from ebay. I'm not saying they can't, it's just that most DR companies have a number of vendors that are used to dealing with DR companies.
3: Getting the donor drive usually only takes a day or two. I don't know why you are waiting so long.
4: It sounds like you are running up a bill whether you get back your data or not. Typically you only pay if you get your files back and it should be a price you got up front, no matter of their part drive cost.

I paid a $150 lab fee... that was to have the guys even look at the hard drive. I check my visa card as well and they did charge me for the other hard drive they ordered.

What I was told is there will be no further charges unless they are able to get the hard drive working to recover my data.

I've got a functional WD1600JB-00GVA0 here with DCM HSBHCTJCH. Feel free to PM me if you are interested.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

***Update***

I've called the data recovery place I was dealing with and got a huge run around. Technician 1 told me yesterday that the hard drive they brought in 4 WEEKS AGO at a $170 cost to me DID NOT match properly to do the swap (seller sent the wrong item).Technician 2 that I spoke with this evening after technician 1 went home with a headache told me they attempted the swap but it was unsuccessful. I'm still paying for the $170 bad hard drive one way or another... as well as needing a different donor hard drive to get the bottom head working. Again, at a cost to me... on top of the $150 lab fee just to have them look at the drive. Now I'm waiting until a second (or will that be 3rd, 4th?) donor hard drive can be located and purchased to progress with my recovery.

After hearing this I promptly contacted a different data recovery place which basically laughed at the run-around I've been given so far. They want $350 up front for lab fees, and a minimum $1800 all the way up to $6000 depending on how many GBs I want back from the recovery. HOWEVER if they fail to recover any information at all, they will refund my original $350.

Is this standard for a DR company, or am I potentially getting jerked around again? I've already thrown $320 down the toilet... I'd like to avoid anymore waisted money.

Now that all aside... if I decide to stick with the first (shoddy sounding) company and HOPE they can get my data... does anyone know if this drive is close enough to be worth trying to pick up? I'm told my HD was not a caviar SE... but a regular Caviar, and the difference between the two is an extra head.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Western-Digital-Cav ... olid=10013

I asked for an explaination as to what a headmap is so I could start looking at it from that angle but the technician did not answer.

No, that sounds pretty horrible in both cases. Even a super-commercial outfit like drivesavers would not charge more than ~$2500 in the worst case I have heard of. If I were you I would demand a refund and/or initiate a chargeback on the $170 (outlandishly high price anyway) drive from ebay that was the wrong one and then the place tried to use it anyway??? What kind of half-assed workmanship is that?

I'm sure some folks on the forum here could help out for a reasonable price, as a last resort contact drivesavers or some other commercial place, I believe they will even do a free evaluation.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

[quote="drccsc"]If I were you I would demand a refund and/or initiate a chargeback on the $170 (outlandishly high price anyway) drive from ebay that was the wrong one and then the place tried to use it anyway??? What kind of half-assed workmanship is that?
[quote]

I'm not sure if they did use the second hard drive... the first guy (who I usually deal with) told me flat out it was the wrong one and when I cornered him about the charge he said he'd talk to the person who sold it to him about shipping it back, AKA getting my money back after it sat around for however many weeks. When I called back this afternoon to ask about the hard drive on E-bays compatability the second technician told me they had tried to do the swap but it was unsuccessful... conflicting stories.

Does anyone know of anybody reliable in Canada to do this kind of work? Both the places I contacted (http://www.datarescue.ca, catalyst recovery) are in Edmonton Alberta because that's close to where I live.

Sounds like this company put you in a bit of a bad position here. A few months ago I would have suggested taking it to Action Front/Seagate/I365 but I believe they shut down their Toronto lab. "We recover data" opened a branch lab in Canada but I am not sure where, I know they have some good techs. Google them. Another suggestion is be willing to ship the drive. A close location is not as important as using a reputable company. Google "Data Recovery" and start looking for companies that have locations world wide. Unfortunately there are no guaranties in this business that you will get your drive in the hands of a competent tech but you chances increase with the big companies. Small companies such as mine can be very good too but many of them are also just scams and it is difficult for you to know ahead of time if they are any good. The big companies have the technology and equipment to do the job correctly but they also have many techs and not all techs are suited for this kind of work. It just depends if your drive lands in the hands of a good one.
Tell the company that has your drive now to STOP. You don't care what they told you in the past...If they have not opened the drive yet, tell them don't open it. Tell them you want it back. If they are local, don't warn them, just walk in and ask for it back on the spot. If they say they can't give it to you on the spot due to it being at another location or it is taken apart, unfortunately there isn't much you can do but wait to get it back.
Be prepared for sticker shock at a good companies quote. If the drive has been previously worked on, it becomes a very high risk job and will be quoted accordingly. This means they will invest their time for the evaluation to quote the job. If you approve the quote, they will invest their money purchasing part drives and the shipping. Then they will invest more of their time attempting the recovery. At the end they will only get paid ANY money if they are successful in getting your data. Since the current person working on the drive may have made it unrecoverable, they would have made significant investments with no return hence the high quote due to high risk.

I was out of the house all day, sorry it took so long to reply.

On Monday I will be pulling my hard drive and hopefully finding a better place to send it.I'm not happy about the cost of recovering the data at this point, and I'm starting to question if the music, personal files (poetry, song lyrics, and yes, a few actual professional recordings) and my 30 or so house designs are worth spending $2000 on.

I'm an amateur musician, an untrained but talented (according to a few architecturists) house designer... and with a little work could probably rebuild the music collection and image files I had. I've made it a personal mission to learn about mirroring hard drives now, as well as learning exactly what goes into a computer and how to take one apart and put it together so I never end up in this position again.

I appologise if I'm a little off topic as it's 3:30 in the morning and I've just walked in the door after a very very long afternoon and several adult beverages.