Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Help: Hard Drive Physical Issue

October 5th, 2017, 5:20

Hi all,

First time here (and first time doing hard drive repair, I'm trying to repair a portable hard drive for a friend who dropped it, I opened it up and found the heads stuck so the disks wouldn't spin. When I returned the heads to the default position, it looked like it worked fine, but my computer still couldn't read it. Any advice?

P.S. I'm only interested in retrieving the data, not looking to make it usable in the long term, so I didn't care about dust or anything (but still trying to keep it clean)

https://youtu.be/JcGAdloawpw

Re: Help: Hard Drive Physical Issue

October 5th, 2017, 17:10

According to scuttlebutt across The 'Net, if you opened the hard-drive in a non-ultra-clean room, data recovery may be all but impossible. However, check with others here, maybe a data recovery company specialist will have an idea.

Re: Help: Hard Drive Physical Issue

October 5th, 2017, 17:37

If the dust didn't mess it up, running it without the top spindle screw in place definitely did ruin it. w/o that top screw holding the axle steady the vibration killed the heads and probably caused microscopic scratching all across all the platter surfaces. I'd say it's a 90% chance to be a waste of time and money now.

Re: Help: Hard Drive Physical Issue

October 6th, 2017, 6:10

UnknownDestiny wrote:dropped it, I opened it up and found the heads stuck so the disks wouldn't spin. When I returned the heads to the default position ... Any advice?

Best advice here would to those, who might be reading this topic in the future - to not repeat any of the steps above.

We work with cases like this, but such recoveries aren't cheap.

Re: Help: Hard Drive Physical Issue

October 6th, 2017, 18:05

UnknownDestiny wrote:Hi all,

First time here (and first time doing hard drive repair, I'm trying to repair a portable hard drive for a friend who dropped it, I opened it up and found the heads stuck so the disks wouldn't spin. When I returned the heads to the default position, it looked like it worked fine, but my computer still couldn't read it. Any advice?

P.S. I'm only interested in retrieving the data, not looking to make it usable in the long term, so I didn't care about dust or anything (but still trying to keep it clean)

https://youtu.be/JcGAdloawpw


if you open drive then say good bye to your drive and data :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
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