Hi HD recovery gurus,

I appreciate if you can please answer. I have a Western digital 500gb internal harddrive, which stopped working and not booting. its giving a siren sound (4 times near start) and then computer display updates as not bootable.

Model number: WD5000AAKS
Sound as .wav file: http://www.4shared.com/audio/G0xM0qrf/ext_-1.html
This is the drive I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136073
the link has images of the drive.

From the siren sound, after researching it appeared like spindle stopped for some reason and I took it to a specialist for initial check. He tried a pcb change and he mentioned it still gives same sound. He checked and opened the lid and touched the spindle and its moving. And he mentioned, its a minor thing that for whatever reason spindle might have stuck but its moving now.

He did this in a regular room and not a clean room. He told that my parts are all good and next step is a small task and it is to take the drive to a clean room technician and check for any possible dust and get the data. He told me it could cost about $125 and until that task is complete , he told me not to plug in drive in computer, as it could do scratches on the disk.

My question is ,.. for WD50000AAKS doesn't the head alignment change after opening the lid? (I read some western digital drives lids center screw should not be removed if not it impacts head alignment,..but I am not sure if my drive has a center screw, please see the image in the newegg link. It has 6 screws in corners/border only) Won't there be a need for " head alignment task" in clean room?

Can the drive be usable for a short time as external drive to download data or would it need special tools to download data. Does my model's head alignment get changed after opening lid or it doesn't apply to my model WD drive?


Thank you
techuser

Leave it up to pro to recover data from that drive.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Opening the lid and outside clean room was not a good idea, anyway the drive can be decontaminated... The quote is too optimistic, to me, even if the drive was not opened.

Thanks harddrivespecialist and BlackST. yes, I want to let the expert handle it,but trying to understand if the sensitivity of head alignment for WD5000AAKS depends on the screws of the lid.

Trying to find out if for my model of WD5000AAKS the head alignment depends on the screws of the lid? Or is it only with older Western digital harddrives? As my WD5000AAKS has six screws only in the corners, as seen in the newegg image in post#1

I was worried, after hearing to Scott's audio about western digital head alignment change on opening the lid and center screw, and that once lid is opened,the head needs to be realigned and could be a 3 hour painful task.

Scott's audio about WD harddrive lids and the painful alignment: http://www.podnutz.com/episodes/mhdd/mhdd004.mp3

Can you or any hd gurus please clarify this. I appreciate it.

Thank you