Platter Exchange

[hmunster123]

If I have a hard drive that's 80gb and another that's 120gb, what happens if I exchange the platters? Will they be read by the computer? Both have data on them. Thanks.

[hdd_sand]

If I have a hard drive that's 80gb and another that's 120gb, what happens if I exchange the platters? Will they be read by the computer? Both have data on them. Thanks.

No and you need to take in consideration the alignment of the platter is critical, can you explain what's the issue with your drive?

[lcoughey]

If I have a hard drive that's 80gb and another that's 120gb, what happens if I exchange the platters? Will they be read by the computer? Both have data on them. Thanks.

Why would you want to do that? If you want your data back, you should contact a professional data recovery lab.

[hmunster123]

Can anyone answer the question? I didn't say I was trying to get my data back. I just asked a question.

[hmunster123]

Let's say the platters are aligned, what happens when I open up the drive on my computer?

[hmunster123]

I'm a technology teacher at a private school. I'm trying to find answers to questions my students have. Thanks.

[jermy]

Can anyone answer the question? I didn't say I was trying to get my data back. I just asked a question.

Let's say the platters are aligned, what happens when I open up the drive on my computer?

Its not black and white, there is missing details to answer the question
BTW on August 28th 2014 you were also busy with platter swap what's your story with swapping platters ?
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29384

[hdd_sand]

Let's say the platters are aligned, what happens when I open up the drive on my computer?

You should open the drive in a clean environment, I don't think your computer is a safe place....


FYI... you may want to read this

http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html

Last edited by hdd_sand on May 4th, 2016, 16:13, edited 1 time in total.

[hdd_sand]

I'm a technology teacher at a private school. I'm trying to find answers to questions my students have. Thanks.

The answer was given to you already, NO, you will end up with to paper weights

And this too...


https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6562

[data-medics]

If I have a hard drive that's 80gb and another that's 120gb, what happens if I exchange the platters? Will they be read by the computer? Both have data on them. Thanks.

I know as teachers you love to use expressions like: "There's no such thing as a dumb question"

However, as kids we came up with all sorts of dumb questions to drive our teachers nuts.

Anyway, your original question is equivalent to asking: "If I switch the brains of a rat and a mouse, what will happen?". The answer is pretty much the same too: You'll end up with two dead rodents.

It's not to say what you're proposing is impossible, in fact just this week I did perform a three platter transplant from a 250GB WD drive into a 320GB HDA. However it's not as simple as it sounds. First off I knew that this model was originally slated to be a 320Gb, but two platter surfaces didn't meet quality control standards so the heads were disabled and it was downgraded to a 250GB. Also after platter transplant read/write heads were also replaced, PCB ROM adaptives were transferred into the donor PCB. Despite all that effort, and professional equipment, we've only managed to read a couple GB of data from it so far. Now we are waiting on some other donor parts to come in so we can force load the service area into the RAM of the PCB before hot swapping it back over to the patient hard drive and then we can hopefully get more data recovered from it.

But, if you plan to just open up two drives move the platters around and plug them in, you're 100% guaranteed to end up with two dead drives.

[rdallasb]

[removed by moderator]

[Martin]

Will they be read by the computer?

With 99,9% probability - NO.

[datahdd116]

If I have a hard drive that's 80gb and another that's 120gb, what happens if I exchange the platters? Will they be read by the computer? Both have data on them. Thanks.

the answer is not possible because the model is not corresponding to the platter can not exchange data recovery