This hard drive was in an external enclosure. I was transferring a large amount of data when it fell off the desk! Physical drop from about 3 foot off of the ground.

Now when its powered on it makes this weird noise then cuts out. Then repeats the same noise a second and third time then stops... it does not sounds like the platters are spinning?

This is a personal drive that has old pictures, schoolwork, etc. I would like to do the physical repair myself with the help of this forum. I'd like to just swap the parts out with a similar drive and backup the info quick and ditch the drive since its only 250gb and also i understand the issues with opening a drive in a semi-sterile environment.

Model 6Y250P0
HDA/Uplevel ?8A (looks like the first letter is a 1 or 7 so 18a or 88a) any help here please?
uplevel 81a

cylinders 16383
heads 16
sectors 63
jumper j50
master on
slave off

Can anyone tell me what part is is i need to replace? What if any other models are compatible? and where to get the parts from? other than ebay?

If drive fell when busy, 99% media damage has occured.
By what you describe, I'm guessing you're also experiencing a failure called spindle lock.

Not DIY.

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I am a certified technician. I am new to this however i don't understand how 99 percent of the data could be lost if the spindle is stuck or part of the platter... 99%

The drive has files that are important and "priceless" to me but priceless otherwise...

I came to the forum for advice as to how to DIY with a willingness to pay for parts and do the labor myself.

I'll try to reset your expectations, but you won't like this reply, so I'll minimise my wasted time and keep this brief...


Understood. However with due respect, that has minimal relevance here, without lots of experience actually working with internal disk drive components.


You've misunderstood what northwind was trying to say - he's saying there is a 99% chance of media damage, in addition to other possible problems. You're asking for a remote diagnosis, so you can''t expect detailed diagnosis to be certain. What you're getting is an expert opinion of likely problems.


Yes, that's typical of home users (as compared to corporates, who probably do have a value placed on recovering the files). However that doesn't change the seriousness of the underlying damage, nor the experience / tools / spare parts / techniques / trade secrets / etc. needed to try to successfully recover the data.


Understood, but IMHO that's an unrealistic expectation for this type of problem. It is like asking to be taught brain surgery, to operate on a patient for the first time, just with help from a web forum, without having had any training, experience, study etc. I suggest you have a read of this thread for starters:

diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html

There really are limits to what is sensible to attempt as a DIY procedure. If you still want to go ahead, and don't believe that you're definitely going to make things worse (and perhaps turn something which a pro could partially recover, into something unrecoverable or many times more expensive) by your attempts, due to a lack of experience, training, equipment etc. which cannot sensibly be provided by any words from a web forum, then I'll wish you good luck. Just don't say that you weren't warned.

In summary, as northwind said: Not DIY

As you have previously mentioned that the hdd was in use & you were transferring data when the drive was dropped from about 3 feet. The platters would have been spinning at the time & the heads would of made contact with the platters when it hit the ground thus scratching the platters surface & destorying any data where the scratches are plus the heads will also be damaged.

Data recover would need to be done by a pro with professional equipment & your data recovered would depend on how bad the damage is. Sorry to say it but DIY is not an option due to the specialist tools & experience required.


Loki

Thanks Vulcan, you've saved me the time to explain to OP what I meant. Loki explained in details too.

What the OP does not seem to realise is that in regards of hard drive recovery, there is no such thing as "semi-sterile environment". Either you have a clean environment, or you don't. If you don't, then chances decrease dramatically (see? here 's the 1% missing!).

It has been pointed in this forum a trillion times; diy does NOT pay. It is OK to try DIY sometimes, and myself I have encouraged people in my replies to try it a few times. But when it comes to mechanical damages, well...

the amount of incoming drives that have been opened by their users have increased the last few months. People think it is very simple, they make attempts and then bye bye. Simple as that.

By the way we have decided to charge an additional fee for incoming drives that have been previously opened.

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Yep, we now charge £100 "open drive fee".

Fed up with clearing up DIY failures, and getting nothing for it. Usually they decline the quote anyway as the type of person who attempts DIY usually has no intention of paying for a recovery, just wants a free diagnosis.

DIY has its place (PCB swap, Seagate BSY etc..) but seen a massive increase of botched DIY disasters in the last 3 months or so. Often by so called "PC experts" or the infamous "mate who knows about computers" (know him ?? )

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completly agree + charge 100,00 to attemp head swap in evidence of crash situation.

Last call of customer was better than a joke, i coudn't stop laughing when i off the call:

hard drive frchecked the arms to see if they were blocked, but they were not.
(me) and how do you know it?
(customer) becouse i moved them
(me) You added some demage to your drive, and also you opened the drive!
(customer) yes? but i used an hair-dryer to clean the platter
(me) You added again demage!
(customer) but i used cold air

hair dryer?
what's next? shaving machine?

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Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Sure, we're good pals. Also the other guys in the "PC shop" who "do data recovery". I know them too.

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SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

I should note that although a lot of people do charge a fee like this, it is not incredibly common, particularly here in the USA.

It's a little too competitive for that kind of stuff.

Still, I can respect the reason why people would charge this fee. It's just that in some markets you can't do that.

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Speaking of DIYs, the most interesting one I had a few days ago was a Hitachi 3.5" 1TB.

The customer had somehow pierced the seal between HDA and the top cover. The drive was then spun up with bits of the seal on the platter. Customer then opened the drive, removed the debris and used some home silicon sealant to patch the hole in the seal, and put it all back together.

By the time it came things weren't pretty. Luckily this one ended well, after a clean up and HSA replacement a 90% image was attained before it died completely.

The creativity of some DIYers scares me.

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