I have a 7200.11
ST31000333AS
9FZ136-301
CC1H

Drive is clicking at 1 second intervals upon powering up and showing 3GB Unallocated in Windows 7
I think that means that I dont have a PCB or firmware problem....its a head failure.
The Seagate website says that there is no firmware update for my serial number.

I've powered it up a total of 4 times since the failure so I'm concerned about what to do next before it fails

Should I buy a clone and swap out the heads or should I do a platter transplant instead?

If it turns out to be a firmware or PCB problem then changing the heads wont help. It seems that a platter transplant would be the only sure way to fix all three (head failure, firmware problem, PCB fried)

Besides being a delicate procedure, are there any other things I need to watch out for when performing a platter transplant?

Thanks for all your help.

Logic has failed you. Send it to a professional if the data is of any value.

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Not particularly valuable. Seems like it would be a fun project and I was hoping to get some good advice so I could do the job correctly.

what could possibly be so difficult about it? There are plenty of kids posting videos on youtube of successfully replacing heads and platters.

Platter swap will NOT fix this, the problem is heads and/or media damage. Even if it was a motor/seizure issue (in which case a platter swap may be the route to take), which it's not, then you have virtually 0% chance of a DIY job.

You're telling me that you've seen a YouTube video of someone transplanting platters in one of THESE drives and then shown the drive WORKING AFTERWARDS? I think not.

Nobody is trying to put your intelligence or skills down, but rather trying to inform you of the extreme difficulty of such an operation. A lot of pros struggle with cases like these, let alone a novice.

Even heads transplants on these drives are a total nightmare, even for pros, so again you have virtually 0% chance of DIY.

Check this link out for further details of why what your attempting almost certainly will fail..

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12671

If you need the data, then please seek pro assistance.

You asked for advice on "what to do next" and you've been given it by someone who knows what they're talking about, if you choose to ignore it then that's up to you.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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

I just found a backup for the drive from a year ago so its no big deal now.

Over the last week, when I would reboot, sometimes the machine would hang before the BIOS screen and the disk access light would stay lit continuously. I'd have to hard reset, let it sit for five minutes, then it would boot fine. Since there werent any strange sounds coming from the drive, it didnt occur to me that this was an early sign of the disk failing.

There more I research the problem, the more I'm convinced that the replacing the heads is the way to go. Since I've watched the procedure being performed several times now, I'm going to give it a shot.

I was hoping someone would at least offer some support by saying "even though your chances are 50/50, replacing the heads is the best course of action if you want to get the drive operable again"

pcimage was kind enough to tell me that a platter swap would not fix the problem so thanks very much for that.

I'm going to grab a couple of drives off of Ebay, make a head comb and practice a few times first.

+1

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Well, how can we say that your chances are 50/50 when they're 0/100...

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Hi pure_logic!

Is hard to do Heads exchange, not imposible but hard to do.

If you want to do it, i suggest you to try in other drives before, if same model better, because every model have some peculiaridities.

Replacing the heads are complex things to do.whereby reasons why the heads transplants always giving a total of nightmares .. If you willing to take a risk of losing data,you can give a shot,but dont forget to clone it first.

If you insists to proceed with the heads transplants,it is up to you to decide. The chances are 0

Please give us honest feedback on the process, what things you ran into and any problems. It will be very helpful for anyone else attempting DIY.

We don't see many posts on people actually doing it and your post would be interesting.

"I did these things, and afterwards was able to recover" is just as useful as "holy cow, I didn't expect it to be so hard, the drive is ruined"

I wish you luck in any case, but I agree it is quite hard

Since the drive DOES show up in Windows 7, is there any software like DDRescue that will allow me to retrieve information off of this drive?

Like a 'bitstream' read from start to finish?

Is there a possibility that the heads can still read data but are unable to find sector zero?

No.

Your drive clicks and shows up with incorrect capacity. It does NOT work.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

If a backup was found and data is no longer important, why try something that won't work at home, will require tooling and a donor, and even after that , assuming it works (it won't...) a drive reworked on uncontrolled environment would die after a short while.
Maybe the purpose of the thread is something else ?

P.S. even for me swapping heads on these puppies is not exactly a straight line, let alone without tools and not having done it before... Anyway who dares wins. Happy tinkering.

Hi pure_logic

just an analogy that may help you understand where data recovery pro's are coming from in terms of complexity. They know the procedures that a layman can only imagine.

Requests like this often read as:

So, a high school student goes to triage and says "my mom has chest pains, she can't move about at all now.
I think it may be her heart. Should i try a transplant. I did first aid in 8th grade and own a leatherman. Please treat me seriously, i have her best intentions at heart."

or even worse,
So, i took my moms heart out and now have problems: please help!

It's not to decry your good intentions, but given a professional knowledge of the patient in hand, it's hard to advise the depth of procedure, skill, equipment and experience needed to *successfully* treat cases like this.

Sc0tt M0ulton gave it a shot and got cried down for it, and he's no pimply faced youth looking to get +1s and Likes.

Youtube is awash with people offering their opinion on how to do stuff. Mostly hey have not the least concern that their offering, data recovery or otherwise, could leave the try-hard up to their neck in sh*t, head down, if they don't have the requisite resources mentioned above.

Some do get lucky on simple jobs, like the old seagate problem: most don't.
Posting a video is mainly an epeen issue.

That said, if you want to learn by trying, buy old drives from ebay and have a go.
Log everything, take pictures, do diagrams so at least when things go wrong, you can backtrack and not make the same mistake again.

Good luck with it, commendable to give stuff a try (on inconsequential gear) even if you only get to the "ask questions" stage and then throw your hands up in the air.

Kern

_________________
Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

I've gotten a few pm's here and on another forum where ppl have told me this is the wrong forum to seek this kind of information. That the pros on here are focused on preventing this information from being shared and will even give misleading information to throw me off track. Thats why Sc0tt M0ulton is spelled in a way that makes it unsearchable.

I have a hard time believing that so I'm going to keep trying.

I'm going to start by cooling the drive down to about 50F and see if anything can be retrieved with TestDisk/ByteBack/FTK

A couple of ppl have said I may get lucky and the drive may mount spontaneously long enough to grab some stuff.

I've restored the backup so I just need about 400MB of mp3s that I've added since the backup

Hey, just curious... how many of those people that have PMed you have performed a at least 10 head swaps on your type of drive and were successful?

If the answer is less than 1 person with less than 3 head swaps, then I think the logic will set you on the right path.

But anyway, I commend your ambition, so let us know how it went.

Thanks

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

Thats an excellent point. I really hope it doesnt come down to a head swap. If it does, I'm going to try it on a couple of $10 throwaways off of Ebay first.

I did find some excellent tutorials on how to make head combs out of a piece of plastic cutting board. Some guys are using shrink tubing or post it notes to keep the heads separated but I'd feel more comfortable with a 'real' one.

No one is trying to throw you off. They are giving you the straight facts. That model is a near impossibility with specialized equipment and tools. DIY - it's about the same chance of being hit by an asteroid, TWICE!

Even the pro's often headswap this model 3,4, 5 times and still can't get them to work even with the right tools. The pros on this forum care too much about helping people get their data back to build up false hopes in you and see you destroy any chance of a successful recovery.

If you successfully headswap it yourself, by all means come back on here and call me an idiot. But when it fails, which it absolutely will, be man enough to admit that we were right.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

I think people focus on the "delicate procedure" part and assume that just means they need to be really careful not to drop or scratch anything.

And logic says that if it WAS true that the pros were trying to put you off, and it actually was quite do-able at home and didn't really need a pro, the internet would be full of people saying just that.

I haven't found a single case where someone has come on and said they performed the head swap at home and now they have their data back.

I kind of hope you do it. You seem to be rational and happy to detail the case, so at least there would be some real feedback for all the people that are going to mirror your case in future.

Just a point of order: Sc0tt M0ulton is not spelled that way to prevent you searching, you are human of course and can pass a simple Turing test. It's to prevent search engines misdirecting people to a post with a mention of his name but no other useful info. It's netiquette.

Pro's on here are guarded with their advice for good reason. There is no conspiracy theory here.

Have you considered why those people choose to DM rather than advise in open forum?
Maybe one would like to guide you through the process.

Its the same neighborly whispers you will hear about fixing your own car.
Why pay a mechanic? They are surely there to hide their info to safeguard their living .... this works right up until you mix up foot pounds and newton meters and shear the head bolts off.

Once sh*t and fan have met the neighborly whisperers will crawl back into the woodwork leaving you to look at and pay for the mess you just made. Pound to a pinch of salt none come back and whisper a repair for you.

As i said before, commendable effort, have a go on inconsequential gear tho.

_________________
Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!