I just wanted to see if anyone else has had any similar instances as I have with this particular case. We always try to get an exact match when doing head swaps, but in rare cases we have resorted to using heads from a larger drive in a smaller drive in order to recover the data. We really only do this if we are having a hard time finding parts. In this particular case, this is for a family friend, who really has no money. I had it seems every variation of an 80gb Hitachi drive except this one, but I found a 100gb drive (HTS541010G9AT00) that had the potential to work. It also had the same MLC. The only concern was that they were manufactured almost a year apart.

Anyway, the swap went fine. The drive actually powers up and comes ready in both DDI and PC3K, but it won't ID. When I connect it via USB to one of our servers, it is picked up immediately, but it is recognized as a 1.8GB USB drive. I've asked the owner of the drive if they swapped out the PCB or not, but I haven't heard back from him yet. It almost has that type of symptom. I'm thinking that it may be just an issue with head compatibility, I'm just surprised the drive wasn't clicking. Has anyone else had anything similar happen? I'm going to go ahead and try and find another compatible 80gb drive.

Compare the date on the label against the YWW or YYWW (Year/Week) date codes on the chips.

Have you checked if the heads move at all? Sometimes the drive will get ready without head movement. Just test drive while opened. For this size, the board should be compatible. Did you test client board on donor drive before swap?

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

Yes, the board is the original, and the heads do move and calibrate when the drive is powered on. The heads move to the middle of the platter, it sounds absolutely normal, just like the drive is working perfectly. After the heads calibrate the drive comes ready and the heads move back to the parking ramp. When you go to ID the drive however, it won't ID at all. If I connect it to one of our servers through a USB adapter, the drive is detected, but it just shows up as 1.8GB. I guess I'm just surprised with this since I figured the heads would work just fine.

I think you have a couple of steps remaining before a successful recovery is achieved. Do you get DRD DSC when the drive starts up followed by an DRD DSC ERR ABRT when you try to ID it?

If so you may have a problem that will require PC3K or similar. Have you tried entering the PC3K utility? If so what happens?