The drive had two recovery attempts in Pakistan before it came to me. I opened it in the L-bench and to my surprise everything was intact. The platters are even semi free but they are severely off access. I have never tried to recover a drive that hit a side of a mountain at 500 MPH. Any suggestions? Would all attempts be in vain? Suggestions on how to do a platter swap and keep them aligned? Yes, I have the platter exchange set. Link to the crash article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100728/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Also, could anyone tell me what the substrate material is on these drives?
Cheers

sounds like an interesting case.

Can you explain what exactly you mean by this. do you mean Axis? or something else? Do the platters turn or are they stuck?

They turn but with slight resistance in one spot. The platters don’t appear to hit anything except for the leading edge of the head ramp but that is not the spot of resistance. When hand spun the drives seem to resemble an old warped LP record. It would be a big help if I knew what substrate material the platters are made of. The family is obviously distraught and I would love to help them out if possible.

Yes, I did mean axis. Sorry about that.

The platters themselves should be made out of aluminum. However you will have several layers of coating and lubricants. If your lucky, then it might just be a bad bearing and moving the platters to a new enclosure can resolve the issue. However if the platters have lost alignment to each other due to the impact of the crash then it will be very very difficult and nearly impossible. If you have a microscope I would start by checking the platter surface.

Good luck!

I appreciate the advice unfortunately I don’t have a microscope yet. If the platters are made from aluminum they could be subject to warpage from the impact of the crash. If this is the case, it is definitely beyond my realm of expertise and I would think it would render the data unrecoverable. Is there anyone you would suggest to perform such a case. I hate to give away work but I would rather keep my reputation.

Cheers

Sure, no problem. Add the Microscope to the purchase list


Yes, that is a possibility.



If price is not the biggest factor I would recommend for you to send it to i365. I believe they also have a partner program where you can sign up for.

I certainly appreciate your replies.

Cheers

Should be glass

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

I was thinking glass too. I'm surprised they weren't shattered. I've had some of these drives come in and they sound like a maraca due to the platters shattering.

That’s why I was so surprised that everything was intact. I would have liked to have an old customer drive to confirm, unfortunately no avail.