Ticking head issue on Samsung HD501LJ disk.

[Neantro]

Heya all,

Introduction
My niece has a Samsung drive that stopped working recently. There is data on it which is valuable for her but she doesn't have budget for fixing it. She gave up on the disk and considers the data lost. I see this as a challenge to try to recover the data for her. It's no problem if recovering data fails, but I want to give it a shot. I've gave my bathroom a good cleaning and a few minutes after a hot shower I've opened the disk for the first impression (most dust free environment in my house I could think of).

Video and specifications
Video: https://youtu.be/UkoPnrVS1L4
Vendor: Samsung
Model: T166S HD501LJ 500 GB HDD
PCB: BF41-00133A

My thoughts
Unfortunate I don't know how to fix this one yet. So far I think the disk does have a bad head, but I don't know why it's making the scratching noises.
I've found this forum and I think I can find myself lots of information about the inner working of a HDD and how to repair it.

I've found one site with a tool to replace the head. Unfortunate it's to expensive for this one:
http://www.hddsurgery.com/tool/hdds-sam-t133-t166-p2-3

I've found a site to order a new printed circuit board (PCB) for this disk (PCB BF41-00133A):
http://www.hddzone.com/samsung-pcb-bf41 ... p-156.html
I haven't tried to replace the PCB because I don't think the PCB is broken. Also, I think replacing it would be a hellish task because I read the BIOS is integrated on the Main controller IC.

Your thoughts
I'm making this post because I'm curious if one of you guys know by the sound what the issue could be, so I can start searching in the right direction.

So.. what are your thoughts by the sound and movement the disk is making (see video)

[pcimage]

It wasn't a good idea to run the drive with the lid off

Without the air cushion formed by the air pressure in an enclosed device the heads are unable to "float" properly above the platter surface, and the "squeaking" noise you hear when the heads traverse the platter is the heads touching the platter.

It IS a heads problem (and probably media issues too) and don't waste your time changing the PCB, it won't change a thing.

Time to put this one to bed if even the head tool is out of budget

[northwind]

Wow, this post is wrong in so many aspects.

It's no problem if recovering data fails

This is good, because -with respect-, this is the end result already.

These Samsungs are difficult drives in general, even for pros.
However, you've opened a drive outside of a controlled clean environment.
You powered it up without the top cover on, thus it is making scratching noises.

Chances of DIY recovery are now 0% and it will be a challenge even for a very good DR pro.

Sorry to be blunt, but it is the truth.

[Neantro]

Without the air cushion formed by the air pressure in an enclosed device the heads are unable to "float" properly above the platter surface, and the "squeaking" noise you hear when the heads traverse the platter is the heads touching the platter.

This makes sense. I knew that it's bad if the head touches the platter like this. But now I know it's because of my own doing and I know why it did go wrong. Thank you for explaining.

you've opened a drive outside of a controlled clean environment.

The steam should take all the dust particles that were left in the room down to the ground. I know it's not as good as a dust free room or box, but it's okay for me now. I think the chance of a dust particle getting on the platter is low. I know i'm taking the risk here.

Chances of DIY recovery are now 0% and it will be a challenge even for a very good DR pro.
Sorry to be blunt, but it is the truth.

It's not blunt. I know I am taking risks and I know it's a specialized job to do so. I'm also someone who is going to try to DIY anyway, if throwing the disk away is the only other option (because professional repair is too expensive relative to the data that is on the disk). The worst that could happen is that the disk isn't recoverable and that I've learned something about it in the process

I think i'm going to try a head replacement anyway. But I will keep in mind that my changes are about 0%. Thank you northwind and pcimage for your replies.

[northwind]

If you're absolutely sure the data on this drive will not be extremely useful in the future, and since you can't afford professional recovery (it would be expensive at this point, anyway), I guess you can try it yourself. Keep heads separated and make sure they don't touch the platter at any time during the process. You would need to find a way to do this during heads extraction (both from patient and donor), since this drive does not use parking ramp and you would need to move heads away from the platters, without them touching the platters and at the same time keeping them separated....
Then, assuming you've done everything right (which is extremely unlikely without prior practice and equipment), and assuming your attempts running the drive without the lid hasn't caused damages to the surface (while I'm pretty sure it has), ideally you would also need to find a hardware imager to image the drive. Sometimes swapping the heads is the least of your problems.

I would suggest you buy as many of these drives as you can and practice on them.
Good luck.