Hi folks. I'm pretty new at HDD repair although I have a decent amount of experience with computers in general. I've been given a non-functioning HDD to assess the possibility of data recovery. The owner of the HDD was quoted $1200 without any guarantees of recovery. This is a lot of money if they're just going to say "sorry, it's hopeless," so the owner gave me the HDD to fiddle around with & see if there's any chance.

The details:

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (ST1000340AS), about 18 months old
-A local computer store said it's been "damaged by dirt" (although I don't know how they came to this conclusion)
-I connected the drive to a docking station and powered it up. It starts to spin, gives 11 clicks, then stops.
-Windows (XP) device manager detects a drive but the name shows up as gibberish, and it is not assigned a drive letter (below is a screenshot). Disk manager doesn't recognise it at all.



Having browsed these forums, it seems like the clicks indicate malfunctioning heads. Is this something that can be fixed? And if I take it to a shop, what would be a fair price? (I'm in North Carolina, USA) Any advice you can offer would be great. Thanks!

the firmware sh*t the bed.
wow - there probably isn't anything wrong with the platters.
Send it our way, we can do it for $600.
PM me.

Ditch the USB to SATA adapter and try again.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Did you join just to make crazy assertions about peoples' drives over the internet and spam your service? Or what?

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

I thought in your previous post you said $500 for any disk?

It's inflation. +20% . On next post will be 720$

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

one of his quotes "NO! NOT the freezer. It will warp everything metal. That only works in a case of stuck heads."

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Haha crazy stuff. Well, the company has decided not to throw any more money at it, so $500 (or $600 or $720) is out of the budget. If it's something simple that can be fixed for around $200, I can convince them to give it a shot, otherwise they told me to chuck the drive.

That means I'm free to crack it open myself if I want. If you guys think it may be the heads, I'd be willing to try replacing them myself per the instructions I found in another thread. I don't have a fancy clean room, but I've got nothing to lose. If I manage to recover the data, I bet they'd be grateful & throw a few hundred $$ my way, but the initial investment & risk & time wasted would be all mine. Should I go for it?

By the way, I tried installing it back in the original desktop PC but I got the same thing (spin, 11 clicks, stop).

Happy DIY - Destroy It Yourself.

Indeed. My philosophy is: if you can't fix it, break it worse.
Seriously, if anyone has any advice to improve my chances of success please share.

There's really nothing anyone can say that will help you do head exchange on a 7200.11 better. Assuming that's even what your drive needs.

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

If you google on the internet you'll find all the advice to improve your chances of DESTROYING your drive : simply do the exact contrary

Rather than opening the drive or hammering it into tiny pieces (same thing really) You could at least begin on a good foot by sending terminal commands and posting the log. Buy or build a serial to ttl converter and start off by diagnosing it properly.

Also, like thatdellguy said, try direct connection rather than through the adapter.

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

What he said. Try the direct connection, get it out of the USB box and hook directly to the computer. If it spins up... See if it reads OK. If it spins but doesn't read OK...

Don't hope too much, maybe a 10-20 percent chance this will fix it. Better than 0 percent...

Try removing the drive's circuit board with a Torx T9 (green handle, Sears, $2.99) and taking a pencil eraser to the areas that contact the disk block (HDA head disk assembly) and cleaning off all the nasty corrosion found there, and anywhere else you see it on either side of the board. Reassemble and try it.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/TerraformingMaster