Tried the freezer thing and lightly banging it. I don't want to hit it too hard. Neither worked. Put it in a drawer for a couple months and decided to have another go at it. While I was looking at it this time I noticed what looks to be burn marks on the PCB board. Is that normal for a HDD over time or does it look like something is actually fried?? Would a swap of the PCB possibly let me get this spinning again? I included photos and a link to a youtube video where I recorded the actual behavior of the drive. Any recommendations on how I may be able to get my data off here. Its somewhat important but not $1500 important. I want to use this for practice as I also have a WD3200 that fell and has the same problem (click but no spin) and the same PCB burn marks. Now the data on the 3200 Is quite important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWi8wX70So (starts at about 0:25)

Broken heads, and maybe bad surface beside that also.
Sorry to say that you can do nothing with this issue.


Yes it's normal.


Unfortunately, no.

OK so there is nothing *I* can do. I don't really care about this one but as I say the WD3200 is a little more important. It had the same kind of fall as this and is showing the same symptoms and the same sounds. From the symptom in that video does this seem for a professional data recovery company that this would be on the lower scale/cheaper fixes (Not that any data recovery is "cheap") or is this getting into rather high tech/difficult/top of the price range scale??

It depends. Precise diagnostic needed.
There are alot of reputable members here near you. One of them will help you for a free "precise diagnostic" then he will offer a price depending on drive condition. Then you will decide if this price is reasonable for you or not.

Good luck

I think the drive spins... The clicks i heard on the video sound like ur standart timeout and back to parking routine. Its like this If you are right and a 2.5 drive is not spining after the fall - most likely cause is the head sticktion. Ammount of damage suffered while the heads griped the platter and the ammount of damage during the dismount will determine if the heads are still usable. I had a lot of drive come with sticktion and id release em with no need for head swaps after. Image and done.

But for what its worth - you tube vid does not sound like it.

Head swap / media damage jobs in ontario will cost ( depending on the shop ) from 1k and up. IMHO 1500 CAD is average price.

Oh, most good shops offer free diagnostics.

OK I'm not sure if your supposed to feel spin up torque on a laptop HDD but you don't on this one. It also won't show up in Device manager, My computer or WD datalifeguard.