Crazy Clicking Toshiba MK8034GSX (80GB)
I received a Toshiba MK8034GSX in that clicks like crazy.
It makes all sorts of horrible beep, buzz and click noises also.
I put new heads in and it still clicks crazy.
I put the crazy click heads in the donor and the donor drive reads perfect.
I put the donor PCB on the crazy click drive and it still clicks crazy.
I put the crazy click PCB on the donor and it runs smooth.
(It does not read because I need to change the BGA ROM chip.)
The crazy click drive will actually read and image while clicking crazy.
It images about one sector per minute.
The data it gets appears to be good.
Customer said her laptop bumped the door frame as she was leaving her room.
It started crazy clicking then and never stopped.
Any suggestion on what I can do?

Based on your clearly explained diagnosis, I vote for damage to motor/bearings due to mechanical shock, meaning that heads keep losing track of servo when spindle wobbles excessively = clicking/recal (but I'm not a DR pro).

Platter swap next?

Imbalance / shift.

Does not seem to wobble but I will give it a try tomorrow.
My laser tack says it running exactly 5,400RPM

FYI, the TOSHIBA MK8034GSX SMART report includes a "Disk Shift" attribute.

According to the following web page, Disk Shift is the "distance the disk has shifted relative to the spindle (usually due to shock or temperature). Unit of measure is unknown."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

According to me, you have to have a working drive to access SMART...

That's true, of course. According to the OP, the drive IDs and reads data (very slowly), so it is working - at least a little. Therefore it might also be able to report its SMART data. No-one will know, unless reading the SMART data is tried.

Good luck

With these drives, with similar symptoms, we usually just transplant the platters and change the heads right away...it isn't that tough to do and quickly eliminates the usual problems.

*** Disclaimer:
When I say that it isn't tough to do, that is for data recovery professionals with the right tools and knowledge.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

dont forget after the platter and the head swap to move the PCB as well.
Good luck.

AFAIK, SMART data (attribute values + thresholds) are stored in two sectors, plus redundant backups. According to the OP, retrieving these data would require about 2 minutes. Furthermore, a data recovery professional who had access to expensive professional tools would be able to access these sectors directly.

That said, it may be that the drive has not been able to update its SMART data since the accident, in which case an absence of disk shifts in the report would be inconclusive. One could test for this possibility by monitoring those attributes which vary in a predictable manner, eg Power On Hours, Start/Stop Count, Power Cycle Count, Temperature.

One other thing that I would look for is a "Position Error" signal. If it is present on the PCB, then I would expect that it would be a 90Hz sinusoid. A comparison of its amplitude against a good donor drive would tell you whether the runout was excessive.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.