2T Hard Drive going tickticktick, can I open to check heads?

[ulrichburke]

Dear Anyone.

Sorry for 3 posts in quick succession, mods!

So I bought a job lot of hard drives for a song because there was one 2TB hard drive in the box that was - to me - worth more than the cost of all the others. And of course Sod's Law made that the one going tick-tick-tick when I got home to try them out in my external caddy.

I've since seen a video on YouTube where this guy unscrews the top of a hard drive making the same noises mine is, sees the heads have got stuck on the platter and uses a screwdriver to turn the platter anti-clockwise with the screw in its centre and a dental tool to lift/drag the playback heads into its little holder, much like taking the stylus off an LP with a crochet hook! He then claimed the HDD had only had 2% damage and he was able to re-access all his files.

Firstly, you guys are the experts, do you think that video was for-real? And secondly, do you think it's worth me giving that a shot? Another thing he suggested was banging the drive on a table. I didn't like the sound of that idea at all TBH but the top-unscrewing one looked interesting.

If you think that's safe I'll give it a go - got nothing to lose, can't use the thing anyway - and if you think the table-banging thing's a good idea I'll reluctantly - very reluctantly - give it a shot though it feels like smacking a porcelain plate to dislodge a bit of dirt! And if you have any other ideas I'll give them a go too. I'd dearly love to get that big ol' boy up and running - it's SATA, but an old SATA - for backup.

Yours hopefully

Chris.

[northwind]

Hey Chris

If you don't care about the data, either bin the drive and move on, or you can experiment with the drive as you wish.
If you care about the data, DON'T try what you saw on youtube. You'll end up with a non-recoverable drive and a lot of wasted time. And money.

[HGST]

I don't see a reason not to try, you have nothing to lose. Take a peek inside for a second. How else you gonna learn? If the drive buzzes it also may indicate seized spindle.
If you manage to recover the drive test it thoroughly, let it reallocate bad sectors, and never use it for anything important.
Long time ago I managed to recover Samsung HD204UI with stuck heads by applying power to it and immediately banging it on my hand. But I was 100% sure that the heads were stuck because before that I send a terminal command to jump to memory address zero witch caused the drive to spin down without parking heads.