Retriving information from hard drive with broken head

[yair25m]

Hello,

I have WD Green 2TB which unfortunately was fallen and stopped working. Today I went to some known company of data restoring and they told me that only one of the six heads was damaged and that they might be able to get a significant part of the information without the need for a donor and head replacement (they told me that at least 5/6 of the data will not be available).
Is it really possible to do so (or does it mean that this company is unreliable)?

Thanks in advance!

[jermy]

it's possible

[Alexii]

In certain cases it is possible to image the live heads , bypassing the damaged one. Amount of usable data depends on fragmentation , file size, luck etc.

[yair25m]

@jermy and Alexii: Thanks!

[lcoughey]

I usually give my clients two choices:

Minor recovery price ($350) - No head change - probably between 50 & 75% of data will be recovered, but could be more or less, take whatever we can get

Major recovery price ($700 + parts) - change heads - probably recover somewhere between 90 & 100% of the data, depending on how much media damage there is

[labtech]

Hello,

I have WD Green 2TB which unfortunately was fallen and stopped working. Today I went to some known company of data restoring and they told me that only one of the six heads was damaged and that they might be able to get a significant part of the information without the need for a donor and head replacement (they told me that at least 5/6 of the data will not be available).
Is it really possible to do so (or does it mean that this company is unreliable)?

Thanks in advance!

It depends on two simple major things that can favor percentages in favor or otherwise: amount and type of specific damage and the type of files in need of recovery. For example, if you have large video files, then percentage will go down significantly. Everything else is pure guessing as the detailed facts are unknown.

[pcimage]

Also there is the risk that the non-reading head will fail catastrophically and cause irreparable damage.

We too offer cash-strapped clients an incomplete recovery option at a cheaper price, but stress the above and if that occurs there is no going back.

For a lot of people, 75-80% of their photos back for half the price is a good ratio. But it's their data, so purely their call

But as labtech says, if it's video then it's really a non-starter.

As it's a WD with 5/6 heads good then the chances of a decent photo recovery is pretty good. Had it been an older Maxtor drive with a failed head then chances of a decent recovery would be significantly lower due to the zone sizes.