Seagate ST2000DL001 Dropped. Issues After Head Swap

[toooldforthiscrap]

The drive was dropped. The ends of the arms were bent and some of the sliders had come off so the impact was pretty significant. I have completed a head swap, and a PCB and ROM swap to rule out PCB damage. The drive spins up, but there is no movement from the new heads. The drive then spins down and the PCB becomes ready, but with nothing showing in the PC-3000 log.

The drive gives a MD and SN etc but the output is:-
MD# ST_M13FQBL
SN# QNR_BFW
FW: 08231540
CAPACITY: 3.86GB

Could this be damage to the motor / or the drive not spinning fast enough?
Or damage to the Voice Coil (i used the original VC)?
Or something else?

Your help would be appreciated.

[toooldforthiscrap]

When I say using the original VC I mean VC assembly (magnets).

[labtech]

Sure the pre-amp connector in making contact with the PCB? No double gasket on it by mistake?

[ddrecovery]

Good point. I will check tomorrow.

[toooldforthiscrap]

labtech - you hit the nail on the head. thanks buddy.

[labtech]

Best wishes.

[Matiw]

toooldforthiscarp,

Does that mean the drive is workibg now ?

Where did the the 3.68 GB come from ? If from the PCB, why 3.68 GB ? If a size comes from the PCB, I expect the ROM size, not 3.68 GB.

Any explanation, forumers ?

labtech - you hit the nail on the head. thanks buddy.

[labtech]

MD# ST_M13FQBL
SN# QNR_BFW
FW: 08231540
CAPACITY: 3.86GB

It is generic code loaded from the ROM located on the PCB.

[zeydullak]

Dear Friends,

I have the same problem - dropped HDD Seagate st2000dm001. I did head swap but hdd spins up, 2 times clicking and spin down. The same case as toooldforthiscrap had. The size of HDD shows 3.86GB

How the problem solved? Could you please advise? thank you.

[labtech]

Dear Friends,

I have the same problem - dropped HDD Seagate st2000dm001. I did head swap but hdd spins up, 2 times clicking and spin down. The same case as toooldforthiscrap had. The size of HDD shows 3.86GB

How the problem solved? Could you please advise? thank you.

After head swap, does your drive spin? If yes, then it is not the same problem as with toooldforthiscrap's drive. Since your drive was dropped, I am highly confident the problem has extended beyond just a head issue. There is likely media damage.

[harddrivespecialist]

Most likely media damage or could be incompatible heads.

[zeydullak]

I can see that there is a media damage. There are scratches on the outer side of platter. could you please check the attached picture? Is this serious damage that even compatible heads cannot help me to recover data? Thank you

Attachments

[harddrivespecialist]

Its impossible to tell by the picture if there is any other damages.
Damages also might be invisible to a naked eye.

[labtech]

Based on the arrows pointing to the damage you see, that particular damage is not very significant in terms of recovery. But that damage indicates that the drive was actually powered when it was dropped, therefore heavily supporting the theory that other damage exists.

As far as clean room environment goes, the drive could be cleaned, but it is a tedious, long drawn process, with fairly expensive equipment.

[LarrySabo]

I can see dust particles on the platter because you open the drive outside an asseptic class 100 clean room or laminar flow workbench.

Either my eyes or my monitor are failing me--I don't see the dust to which you refer, even when I zoom into the image.

[michael chiklis]

This is a F3 drive, as i know when you change F3 heads you need firmware tools to adapt rom.
Did you adapt the rom to new heads?

If you already adapted rom then could be that donor heads are not compatible.
Also, have you check if head ramp got damaged?
If yes, probably heads donor got damaged by it, IMHO.

[data-medics]

It's a DM series drive. Which means you have to change the heads 4 or 5 times, and it still may never work even with adapting the ROM. I had to create a new pricing tier just for models like this because they are so problematic.

[jignesh]

It's a DM series drive. Which means you have to change the heads 4 or 5 times, and it still may never work even with adapting the ROM. I had to create a new pricing tier just for models like this because they are so problematic.

Dear Friend Data-Medics.

Agree With You New F3 DM Series Drive Is Realy Tough to resolved who is work with older normal head swap technics.

Yours Friend.
Jignesh Pankhania.

[zeydullak]

Dear Friends,

Thank you very much for your valuable opinions. I do really appreciate your help.

We identified media damages on the hard drive - the platter set was not in alignment due to the drop impact.

Another question is that we have just purchased a good fume hood for clean-room environment. Is it really make a big difference opening hard drives in clean-room and in an ordinary environment? I want to know if there are real case where a few small dust particles cause any drives failed?

Thank you

[northwind]

Is it really make a big difference opening hard drives in clean-room and in an ordinary environment? I want to know if there are real case where a few small dust particles cause any drives failed?

Yes.

We have made a case study about this. I can't share the entire document, but in a nutshell, we took a drive (in this case a WD Tornado 320GB) and ran a surface scan. This is initial result:

Then we opened drive in clean room, let it stand there for 30 minutes, closed it up and ran the same scan, in the same area of the drive. Here is the result:

Finally, we opened drive in our workbench, let it stand there for 30 minutes, closed it up and ran the scan again, in the same area. And...

Out of curiosity, we let the drive run for as long as it could take. In another 15 minutes one of the heads died.

Hope that helps.