DIY Head Swap on WD 2TB HD
February 2nd, 2016, 12:22
Hi
So I have decided to go for it and perform a head swap on a drive that had a very slight fall and has slowly stopped working.
The orginal drive is WD 2 TD Green (packaged as the 'My Passport Ultra'). The drive I plan to use for parts is another My Passport Ultra, but this is WD 2TB Blue.
* Does anyone know if the heads stack from the blue will work in the green should work. Physically they look identical.
* Also, after completing the swap, does anyone have a suggestion for disk imaging software to recover the data? Are there any good free ones out there?
I am on Macbook Pro and the drive was formatted to ExFat originally.
Appreciate any feedback on the matter.
Thanks in advance!
Michael
So I have decided to go for it and perform a head swap on a drive that had a very slight fall and has slowly stopped working.
The orginal drive is WD 2 TD Green (packaged as the 'My Passport Ultra'). The drive I plan to use for parts is another My Passport Ultra, but this is WD 2TB Blue.
* Does anyone know if the heads stack from the blue will work in the green should work. Physically they look identical.
* Also, after completing the swap, does anyone have a suggestion for disk imaging software to recover the data? Are there any good free ones out there?
I am on Macbook Pro and the drive was formatted to ExFat originally.
Appreciate any feedback on the matter.
Thanks in advance!
Michael
Re: DIY Head Swap on WD 2TB HD
February 3rd, 2016, 8:40
Wow, this post is wrong in so many ways it caused me a headache 
I'm sorry to say but you're over your head with this one.
Once again, for someone to perform successful head swaps, they need to have proper equipment, experience and know-how.
You have none of these.
Do you own/have access to a clean room? Without it, you're just spinning your wheels, even if everything else is done correctly.
Do you have proper equipment/technique to swap the heads? Without them, you'll destroy the donor heads and cause damage to patient surfaces.
Assuming you do everything right, you will need to convert the drive to SATA so you can clone it using a hardware imager (which you don't have) after you've solved other problems that will come across your way.
On top of all of that, you're most probably talking about a Shrek drive which complicates things due to this family's peculiarities.
To sum it all up:
You need to choose correct donor -- and yes, Shreks are picky
You need to practice on countless head swaps on dummy drives to make it right
You need to perform the head swap on a clean room facility
You need to convert the drive to SATA
You need to work with family peculiarities on firmware level
You need to use hardware imager to image the needed data.
Good luck!
I'm sorry to say but you're over your head with this one.
Once again, for someone to perform successful head swaps, they need to have proper equipment, experience and know-how.
You have none of these.
Do you own/have access to a clean room? Without it, you're just spinning your wheels, even if everything else is done correctly.
Do you have proper equipment/technique to swap the heads? Without them, you'll destroy the donor heads and cause damage to patient surfaces.
Assuming you do everything right, you will need to convert the drive to SATA so you can clone it using a hardware imager (which you don't have) after you've solved other problems that will come across your way.
On top of all of that, you're most probably talking about a Shrek drive which complicates things due to this family's peculiarities.
To sum it all up:
You need to choose correct donor -- and yes, Shreks are picky
You need to practice on countless head swaps on dummy drives to make it right
You need to perform the head swap on a clean room facility
You need to convert the drive to SATA
You need to work with family peculiarities on firmware level
You need to use hardware imager to image the needed data.
Good luck!
Re: DIY Head Swap on WD 2TB HD
February 4th, 2016, 6:41
++++1 To northWind
Sorry to say but its not DIY Case ........
Sorry to say but its not DIY Case ........
Re: DIY Head Swap on WD 2TB HD
February 4th, 2016, 10:44
We wouldn't be here if a head swap was so easy 
Re: DIY Head Swap on WD 2TB HD
February 4th, 2016, 14:52
"...The original drive is WD 2 TD Green (packaged as the 'My Passport Ultra'). The drive I plan to use for parts is another My Passport Ultra, but this is WD 2TB Blue..."
...and I thought the donor circuit board and stuff has to the exact match as the patient circuit board and stuff.
...and I thought the donor circuit board and stuff has to the exact match as the patient circuit board and stuff.
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