Western Digital 500GB - WD5000AAKX - Heads going on and off

[nux17]

Hello to everyone, and thank you for reading this message.

I wish to restore functionality on a faulty WD HDD that is unreadable and undetected at BIOS level.
Platters looks OK, heads have been changed by myself from an identical brand new drive, but the problem remains the same.

Some pictures included.
Open case HDD running video : https://streamable.com/5005md

Do you have any idea what I could try next to fix it?

Thank you very much.

Attachments

platter

head

[WebClaw]

nux17, data is likely gone at this point (or at least severe media damage).
You cannot power on a drive without the lid and that noise.... so very bad.

[lcoughey]

Why did you open the drive, change the heads and power it up with the cover off, then ask for advice?

If the data is of value stop messing with it and send to a pro. Otherwise, bin it and move on.

[nux17]

Thank you for your answers,

The noise pattern and type is strictly identical as it was before the heads swap. Even though the data might be gone now, I'd like to know what could have been done besides changing heads.
Data is indeed of some value, but not worth $2000+ needed for a professionnal data recovery.

I'd surely have asked for advice before if I've known this forum, sorry for my bothering amateurism.

Thank you!

[Lardman]

Data is indeed of some value, but not worth $2000+ needed for a professionnal data recovery.

No decent lab would have charged you that for a 500gb drive just needing a head swap. $500 was more likely. You'll end up with an open drive fee but if the data is worth that sort of money find a local lab.

[WebClaw]

Data is indeed of some value, but not worth $2000+ needed for a professionnal data recovery.

No decent lab would have charged you that for a 500gb drive just needing a head swap. $500 was more likely. You'll end up with an open drive fee but if the data is worth that sort of money find a local lab.

Agreed, $200 non-refundable open drive fee + $700 in labor CAD. Very simple model to work with. Same noise most likely caused by bad heads (x2 - as in before and after swap). High pitched noise indicates heads are not floating; but touching / scratching the platter. So now bad heads and surface damage - not good

[DriveForParts]

Hello,

I could not see the video as it is no longer available, and consequently cannot hear the noise pattern to know if it involves a high risk of serious media damage.
Likely the head swap has been done without the necessary know-how and proper equipment (clean bench, globes, surgeon cap, the proper tools).

Data is indeed of some value, but not worth $2000+ needed for a professionnal data recovery.

The cost of a data recovery depends on several factors (difficulty, level of expertise, cost of life, price of parts, a.s.o.) and a decent price helps companies not giving up too early on difficult cases: those that require more attempts, more labor, than easy ones.
Before your attempt, your case was likely in a 500$-1500$ price range by many professional data recovery companies.

I assume that you contaminated the platters by opening the hard drive without a clean bench.
In such a situation, I would strongly advice picking a data recovery lab that has expertise (or at least some experience) in platters decontamination. I believe that this remains a hand-crafted process, still quite experimental nowadays, with R&D from some labs.

You can expect a substantial higher cost than originally, because of the necessary decontamination which is not an easy task, and the possible serious media damage. Also expect the chances of a successful recovery being much lower than initially.
If the data recovery succeeds, the strong media damages may have lowered the percentage of recoverable files and the quality of the tree reconstruction.

Telling about your current budget for this recovery would help knowing if it is still worth attempting something.

(...) heads have been changed by myself from an identical brand new drive (...)

Apart from the fact that the recovery had do be done by a truly professional lab, are your sure that your donor was really compatible?

There are no less than 7 variants of the WD5000AAKS, determined from the 3rd letter after the dash in the full model name :
°°A7B°, °°D2B°, °°TMA°, °°V0A°, °°V1A°, °°YGA° and °°Z1A°. These variants which belong to 5 different families:
Atlantis, Tahoe, Tahoe PL, Tornado 2D and Tornado 3D.

Your donor had to be the same variant, or at least to belong to the same family (or a compatible family).

Example of the "A7B" variant : https://drive-for-parts.com/WD5000AAKS-A7B
(Other variants can be reached at the bottom of the linked page.)

Furthermore, you have to match same heads, given by the DCM (typically ...T2... vs ...TJ...). Preferably also match the country of manufacture and have quite similar Microjogs values.
Example page showing what has to match: https://drive-for-parts.com/WD5000AAKS- ... RIVE-D1047