Here's the scoop:

A client of mine has a WD2500 that was making classic "head crash" noises for that model. The heads had literally disintegrated. Several of them detached from the board, and one of the arms had actually broken right off the mechanism.

I have very carefully replaced the heads from a donor unit. The heads seem to be just hunky dory, but the drive is still unable to read the service area and boot itself.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I might be able to proceed without a PC-3000 system?

I am considering trying to find an EXACT match on the Model (WD2500BB-98DWA0) instead of the donor I used (WD2500BB-00FTA0) .....do you think this will help?

I really dont think it will help you m8. Head crash , obvious media damage , WDC drive , no access to equipment and ill go on a limb here and say that you dont do mechanical data recovery as part of ur business... Imho no chance m8. This is not a forgiving drive and urs is not a simple issue.

You're mostly right, except that I do occasionally do mechanical drive recoveries. I have done a number of them, mostly laptop drives, which required replacing heads, transplanting platters and logic board to a chassis with good spindle bearings, etc.

One thing I am certain of, though, from the research that I have done so far, is that your assessment of this as an unforgiving drive for data recovery is accurate!

Should I try another donor drive with the more similar model and hope for the best, or should I just give up before I throw another $50 in the fire?

Your problem with this model is alignment. I've had a ton of those and probably only 10% of them have ever initialized after a head replacement. I dont have a micron adjustable jig nor do I have the patience to hold a screw driver at a certain angle once it finally comes ready. Keep messing with the lid screw; torque it differently and adjust the lid. If your lucky it will come ready but this is assuming a ton of other variables such as the SA area itself not being damaged and the replacement heads are a close enough match.

Old WD 3.5" are a whole different ball game from Toshiba 2.5" with bad bearings; even people who do this for a living find these to be challenging. Given how damaged the drive was to begin with and your experience level, I doubt you will have any more luck with changing the heads again.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Imho DRC is right OP. Bad drive to work with and dont forget our good friend the media damage.

Well, thanks for the info. I can tell that you know drives, because indeed, the bad spindle bearings WERE in a 2.5" Toshiba drive. Two of them. I think the head replacement was on a Hitachi 2.5" drive.

I appreciate the information. I guess I'll have to goof around with it for awhile and see if I can get it to initialize. If not, well, they have what they had before.

I REALLY don't understand why WD didn't make some kind of precision mechanism to hold the head bearing in place. Does WD have so little foresight as to think that a sloppy head mount stabilized by a cover screw is REALLY a good idea?!