HDD GURU FORUMS

Hello people out there

The external HDD of a friend crashed on the floor when it was connected to the computer.
I need heads for the :
WD P/N : WD5000BMVW - 11AMCS2
DCM : EHOT2HN
DATE : 13 OCT 2011
DCX : CA27M8FCV
S/N : WX41E81CVL77
Product of Malaysia

Two photos are joined to this post (hdd opened in a DIY Cleanroom ).
This HDD contains only 3 heads. The top surface is not read by a head.

Thank you and happy recovery !
Alexandre

Looking ahead, do you have the necessary cloning equipment? If not, you may want to think twice about pursuing this on your own.
Not an easy drive to recover, especially when dropped on the floor.

I don't have any special cloning tool, except dd and rsync ont Linux
It's like a training for me. I've worked on a spare disk, disassembling and reassembling many times.
I'd like to try by myself and discover the HDD recovery world a little

Failure is acceptable, but I try to reduce the risk to the minimum ^^

Thank you,

Oh, ok. Then you will learn plenty. And potentially scratch your head few times as part of the learning process.

Hello,

We do have this donor in stock and ready to ship.

Here is specs:

Model number: WD5000BMVW-11AMCS2
Serial number: WXH1A91T4457
Date: 16 OCT 2011
DCM: HVOT2HB
2060-771761-001 REV P1 on the PCB
2061-771761-101 AB on the barcode sticker
SKU: 20255
http://www.harddrivesforsale.com/wd5000 ... cs2-2.html

We can head map for you upon request.

Thanks for your answer, it's super cool
I've checked on your website and it seems that this model is closer to mine than the one you are offering :
Link : http://www.harddrivesforsale.com/wd5000 ... amcs2.html

What do you think ?
Does someone have an advise ?

Thank you !

These are quite interchangeable, so most probably they will do for you, as long as the head map is correct. Yours is 0,1,2 so a drive with HM 1,2,3 won't do. So be careful.
Also, after head swap and assuming you've done everything correct, you will need to clone the drive, and best way to do this is by converting it to sata.

The HDD has been restaured by using the http://www.harddrivesforsale.com/wd5000 ... amcs2.html donnor

Thank you all for your help

"Restaured"? As in now it works and data is accessible?

Yes, I opened it in a DIY cheap glovebox and moved the heads.
When connecting it back to laptop, it did many noise but worked. After that I imaged it with dd_rescue for 3 or 4 days.
I finally obtained ~40% of readable sectors (the starting and end of the disk sectors zones where heavily corrupt).
After that a photorec pass was used and recovered files parsed a little with a custom bash script (for adding relevance, removing dupes, sorting, ...).

I could maybe do better with professional tools. I don't know if in Paris there are geekly professional for experimenting a different approach for comparison.

That's it

Good...you were really lucky. Should have played the lottery.