- summary: -
Before opening my WD drives,
should I use a WD head-alignment tool
to write down the factory axis values before opening the drive?


- background: -
I need to know this because my drives are flooded with dirty water,
and I rather open and clean them as soon as possible.
If I wait, the platters may be damaged by oxidation.

I do not mind if omitting the step of writing down the originals values
results in several more hours to re-align.
But if re-alignment is impossible without those original values,
then I should first somehow tinker that alignment tool.

from downtown Vancouver,
greetings,
-Tristan Laurillard

This is wrong on a number of levels.

I'm gathering that you are not a professional DR guy. On this basis, you really should find your local pro or this drive will become totally unrecoverable. This drive has a number of critical issues and needs a real expert.

_________________
Data Recovery Ireland

If you never did that in your life, the chances of recover a WD with head swap are close to 0.

WD has issue and a head align tool that they offer is very expensive. Even if you have this tool your change of swapping out head is 0 to 0 sorry to say this one. Head alignment tools will not help you out in your case at all. You need more experience than purchasing a tool and hoping that your head can be aligned again. I would suggest by the time you get done buying all that is needed to do this you have spent more money than on a real DR compamy who has experience to do this job. Plus in the end you have lost your data. Then on top of it if you decide afterwards to take it to a professional DR company the price will double sometimes triple if you mess around with this one your own. Good luck

_________________
Iorana Haraharaini

Thank you both for replying.
This is helpful response.

The data is not worth a professional recovery.
So I rather see it as an interesting project.
What other way to -get- experience . . .

There is no reason yet to swap heads.


I am still curious about the question I had:

         ☼ Whether it is essential to record
            the starting values before opening the drive.

Who has an idea ?
Not helpful or important. Essential.


Drtshop.com has been so noble to send me
documentation that comes with the alignment tool they sell.
Seems like an important document.
I had not seen it anywhere online yet.
Let's get it out there; make it easily findable.
 
 

 
 

No it is not this will not help you out at all. Sorry your answer is not this that you were expecting but the alignment tool and your setting will not help you to swap out heads on this and get back data on the drives.

_________________
Iorana Haraharaini

My prognosis is that I only have to open the drives,
remove debris, and close them again.

The drives have not run since the [͠w͠at͠e͠r] damage.
So nothing has crashed or scraped at this point.

A fifth flooded drive, that had nothing important on it,
had no liquid inside when I opened it.
The air filter sufficed.

So if I see that these four Western Digital drives also
are still dry inside, then I can continuing with further tests
without having to worry ( as much ) that I only make things worse.

                                 Thanks and salut poehere, for helping out.

Famous last words.


In principle, what needs to be done isn't "complicated" it needs to be cleaned, parts will need to be replaced, etc. But there are so many details that you are not aware of. Cleaning the platter isn't so simple.

Enjoy your project, I hope that you learn the valuable lessons from this experience.

Thanks Russ.

I can accept if it fails.
These drives had backups, so I am only risking losing
the last added data.

    I have the patience, I have this forum,
    I have four drives in total to try this on.
    There are plenty miniature tools,
there is a microscope,
and lots of passion for projects like these.

Currently the drives are drying in containers with rice.
I should have done that earlier though . . .
Until recently I had them in sealed zip-lock bags.
The liquid the disks were flooded in was already down the sink,
so I could not keep them in that ( as was advised ).

Perhaps there is no liquid inside the drives at all.
The one I did already open did not.
    Although the drives were submerged around 24 hours,
they were only several centimetres deep under water.
So, the water pressure was not much more than 1 atmosphere.

                        -Tristan

PS.   Regarding the drying process: for those wishing to
       try silica gems in stead of rice, you can buy them
       in pet stores. They are used for cat litter boxes.

PPS. Has anyone tried plain salt ?

Hmmmmmmmmm You know it might be that no water will enter due to the equal pressures each side of the filter. But what if the water level slowly receded and air was able to enter the drive? Well you will never know until you do the deed. Open the drive. Then you have the alignment problems to overcome. I can't see any other way!

I think the first question that needs to be asked is whether or not you have the wd alignment tool or not
I assume you didn't have the tool as you found a manual at a later stage?
Assuming you don't have the tool is it really worthwhile to buy the tool just to experiment?
If you are curious and you have the disks with no data of importance on them than just open the drives and it will be the best way to find out
Good luck

It may take a while before I do the actual alignment process.
But count on me for presenting my findings here.

 
COULD SOMEONE give a rough estimation of the ratio between

• the minute horizontal increment, and
• the micrometer rotations of these 4 (or 3) axis

                   . . . on the WD alignment tool ?

So: one millimetre every 40 rotations, or something.

I want to build the tool myself.
To me it really does not seem very hard
with some creativity -- at least, something
sufficient for the 4 drives I still need to fix.

I shall document the whole process for this forum.
( Could take another 12 months, but I am determined ! )

                                     Tristan Laurillard

What is the hard drive model number? Not all WD drives have alignment issues. Also, think about the fact that once you clean out the drive, you will need a matched donor drive for parts, which will cost money. If you have a multiplatter drive that does have debris on the platter, how will you confirm that they are perfectly clean? Essentially your project has a fairly low success rate to begin with, especially if there is dried dirt/debris stuck on the platters. Big DR companies have developed tools and processes JUST for water damaged drives. Smaller DR companies don't even do them given the cost and success rate. We just don't want you to waste your time/money given all of the variables.

The increment/rotation ratio I need is for these 4 drives :

• WD2500JS
• WD2500JB
• WD15EARS
• WD10EACS

The data is not needed fast, nor is it worth cash.
For some I already have donor-drive parts.
Others I shall look for later if it appears necessary.

This is just for me a fun educational project, and worth documenting
for us all to attain MacGyver-enlightement.
And failure is fine.

I really do appreciate your concern though.
Thanks [sknopp].

               Tristan Laurillard

I would say that there are no significant alignment issues with the WD15EARS and WD10EACS. I would say that the other 2 will require some adjustment, although there are other ways of dealing with this problem.

Thank you !
That is helpful info.

Salut !
           -Tr.