Hello. I have platters from a WD1200ve which have important data . I need to get the info off of them. Seems that the market has many more WD1200beve. Does anyone know how i can make sure I can install WD1200ve platters into a WD1200beve. Is there a website that I can go to which can verify if I can use the 1200beve for the 1200ve platters. when I do a search for the drive online i often see that the drive is sometimes labeled as a " WD1200ve / beve " ...... as if they are the same drive....... but if they are the same then why are they named differently. I hope to just find a new drive and swap in these platters I have. Thank you all so much.

And where are you keeping those platters? Like CDs on sleeves or whatelse ?
(if it is not a joke it's tragic)

No im not using them as coasters or mini frisbees in the meantime.... lol ....... They are still in the drive which is inoperational.

AH ... that's really better ... It's not the 1st time people come with a ziplock bag with only platter/s inside asking "if you can save my documents" (heard about a guy who removed the platter and tried to read it on DVD rom too...)

In Orlando there's a valuable professional member of this forum I know well and I can recommend (the 1st that comes to mind) : send a private message to quasimodo , at least he may be near you and do something as well. Let me know.

Thanks for the info. But I really want to try this for myself. I did open the hard drive. So if a dust particle touches the platter .... ??? its ruined ??? or if there is a finger smudge ??? Some one told me to remove dust : use a can of air and to clean finger smudges use microfiber cloth. I know you all hate novices like me asking the wretched " does anybody know " questions , but Im interested in this field....and I want to learn about this stuff instead of just sending it off and paying someone. I love technology and how else am I supposed to learn. So back to my question >>>> I have two platters from a WD1200ve. Yes they have been exposed. Yes they are back inside the drive temporarily. I did see a dust particle or two on each and a very small finger smudge. besides that they are perfect. I am not new to working on electronics so i am eager to give this a shot. I am not naive about how delicate this surgery is. I know the read write heads are very touchy and everything must be done exact. I like the challenge. Like I said I have two platters.... I really would appreciate if someone could tell me if I should try this swap or not. Are platters totally shot cause of a couple of dust particles and a smudge. Thank you all for any help.

Have you removed the platters and then put them back in?

yes. i did.

Sorry, then nobody can help you anymore. And not because of dust.

I will try to be as much polite as I can
First of all if you want to learn something do not do it using drive with important data. Buy thousand drives which are all one and same model and try to move platters. Then tell us or at least note how many of them you will be able to give you ID after you moved platters.We all begin from some point, do not think you will learn from a movie on youtube or vbox7 how to move heads or platters for half a day, or asking here. It's all about the practice. I have not hear an university or some other place to "produce" DR engineers, but here are lots of members which are really good in DR because they learn from their mistakes, but yes help is always appreciated when you got stuck. The fact you are not newbie in electronics does not mean nothing. For moving heads/platters you will have to "develop" your own tools or will have to buy already developed, and even you got tools "ready to use" you will need to know how to use them. Which return you to my first sentence.
So back to your questions. If drive has been "exposed" to dust and fingerprints. Everything should be cleared before you power up the drive, otherwise you or are at risk to make scratches, kill heads.... In a few words to make data unrecoverable.
If your platters are back to the original HDA temporary, which mean to me that they have been off already. Then you should start to think to use the platters as a mirror and HDA as ashtray.
The thing I can not understand is why everyone try to move platters from one chassis to another instead of put good working head stack. May be because of the way he make diagnostics and understanding how things work.
I wish you good luck!

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DataRecovery.bg

OK Samo. I understand what your saying. And thank you for your patience and your knowledge. Everything you said made complete sense. So now i have two little mirrors ..... i got it. Good Idea about the headstack. If i was not such a neanderthal I might of thought of that. I guess I looked at those platters as little discs that just needed a new home. So for future reference why are they mirrors and ashtray now. Why does removing them seal their fate. And once again thank you.

The platters contain address marks that are syncronized
to each other. On MOST drives, these marks/signals are
recorded after the platters are secured in the drive housing.
Once you removed the platters, you misaligned these sync
marks. The marks are so small that re-aligning them is virtually
impossible.

Not impossible, but don't think he will spend thousands of dollars /eur.

That's why I said "virtually impossible"

I would venture the bet. There are small chances, just because this is WD (Scorpio i guess) .
But the price will double, do not need go to fortune-teller.

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Angel Data Recovery

Not for all drives.

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Angel Data Recovery

It was a simplification...

Man I love learning this stuff. I think Im getting addicted. All of you have been so cool. Some forum guys are such pricks. Regardless I do believe what you all say is true I have succesfully ruined these platters by removing them and putting them back. But none of this matters because the top platter has two perfect circles on it that initially I thought it was manufactured that way. But now after days of research I know that they are DEEP scratches........ never figured it to be scratches cause these circles look so precise and perfect. and when held up at an angle you could not see any sign of the scratch on the surface ( meaning no groove or damage could be seen on surface ) ..... only see it when you look down on it. I thought they were like segments or partitions at first. Im sure i have all you veterans scoffing and mocking my ignorance now. LOL !!!

You can still make a clock. No , 2 clocks.