I have a 7200.7, 160GB drive. Came in with a bad set of heads, and terminal output verified this. Also the customer said the drive had been dropped prior. So I swap the heads. The donor was a spot on match, because they were purchased at the exact same time. The drive sounds 100% perfect. But it stays in a BSY state. Looked at the output in terminal, and everything looks fine. I can get to the prompt, and no errors at all. However, it's still in a BSY state. Any suggestions on this? Feel free to PM if you wish. Thanks.

Are you sure no actions are taking place in the background?

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Like what? Like any other errors?

Reallocation action for example.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Does the motor sound normal, or slightly more "sluggish" than normal?

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PC Image Data Recovery
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No, not at all. The whole drive sounds 100% perfect...and it actually sounds like it calibrates. I've had drives where the motor doesn't quite get up to speed, but in those cases the heads wouldn't even engage. I double checked also with the customer about what they meant when the drive "dropped" and they failed to mention, that it wasn't a physical "drop" it was just the drive dropped out of the system, started clicking, and wasn't showing up any longer Big difference. lol So there's not even issue with the spindle bearing. I've put the original heads into the donor drive, and the donor has the exact same symptoms this one did originally, just clicking. So I'm sure it was the heads, I just don't know why it's just stuck in this state.

You say terminal looks normal, can you write it here?

After drive displays output, can you get a prompt with T>?

If it fails to reach DRDY, and there is terminal output, and heads are compatible and functional, there should be some error at terminal to reflect the issue.

Otherwise, if you reach T> there may be another way to reach data, albeit slowly.

Here's what I get in Terminal. Looks fine to me.

"Not Interface Age!"

There's your error!

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http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Dear Friend gtd4242
Agree With PCIMAGE
Fix Age And Your Problem Solved.

Yours Friend
Jignesh Pankhania

Awesome. Thanks. I had just read about that. I'll try it Monday.

Yep, that did it. All is well. Thanks!