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

Yeah that was never going to happen

Despite not having an ultrasonic cleaner, a test that could be done was to remove the heads and PCB and soak the dishes with the chassis in ultrasonic cleaner to see if it really clean and doesnt make any damages in the surfaces.
This is a test that only those who have the machine can do.

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Data Recovery Technician - If Data is important don't DIY without knowing the real problem.

Anyone used these?

http://www.berkshire.com/swabs.shtml

If you have been using cotton swabs, then you have been doing the wrong thing and getting away with it.

In my day, hard drive manufacturers specifically cautioned against the use of cotton swabs for reasons that should be obvious. In fact Control Data supplied flat plastic head cleaning sticks onto which you would fit a lint free sock moistened with isopropyl alcohol.

As for cleaning fluids, I suspect that isopropyl alcohol would probably be safe, but I would suggest that it would be best to seek advice from the HDD manufacturer. Your chemical engineers may not be aware of the nature of lubricants and coatings used in a particular platter design, so you would be relying on trial and error testing.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Training seat environment:
All learning seats have everything necessary for data recovery engineer:
computer with all required software
PC-3000 workstations installed
screwdriver kits with T,-,+ types, tweezers, pliers, cutters
brush, isopropyl alcohol, dust air can
soldering stations, hot air station, soldering accessories
magnifier lamp with stand
training handouts

http://www.acelaboratory.com/training.php#001

and

Cotton swabs...
Applications
For use in some of the most critical applications, including disk drive manufacturing and high-level optical surfaces

http://www.contecinc.com/products/life- ... /all/con(i)stix(-i)(r)-swabs-_-cotton

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

A lint free cotton swab. I guess technology marches on.

Thanks.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

In this site we have many types of swabs: http://www.contecinc.com/products/micro ... swabs/all/
What is the recomended for cleaning the platters? Cotton, Electrostatic Dissipative, Sealed Foam, Sealed Polyester our Wrapped?

Thanks for the information.

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Data Recovery Technician - If Data is important don't DIY without knowing the real problem.

Hi guys,

I have clean the platters sucessfuly with Sm. Knit Poly Swab, Rigid Tip one with IPA (Iso Propyl Alcohol 100% pure) and other only to clean and swap the liquid that remains. I do it in cycles from center of the platters to outside and it works. The platter is cleaned was you can see in this picture:http://files.hddguru.com/index.php?action=view&filename=platters%20cleanded.jpeg.JPG&directory=Hard%20disk%20Pictures/Hitachi/SATA&

I want to thanks for all the tips and replys this post have.

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Data Recovery Technician - If Data is important don't DIY without knowing the real problem.

heheh so it was a chemical thing

good luck

remember, things been discovered by your own search will STICK inside your mind, and never forget.

glad to see this

btw, the link you provided were already here, i saw it sometime ago

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Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein

Thanks einstein9, i'm gona make a full report with all the tools and possible solutions to make more tests in the future, and put in my knowladge base.

I have put the link to the picture i take in this morning, so only i see it 10 min before i post is sometime ago

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Data Recovery Technician - If Data is important don't DIY without knowing the real problem.

In the past I have used pec*pads to remove debris from film and digital image sensors. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use them on drive platters. Here's a link.
http://www.photosol.com/store/pc/viewCo ... nPreview=1

The same company has swabs and an alcohol solution that works well on sensors.

Hope this helps

I couldn't help but wondering what the non-liquid cleaner would be? Two guesses of mine:

1. Ions (ozone, electrostatic generator or precipitator)... or
2. A strong magnet.

, I would recommend Novec 7100 or Novec 71IPA. See the MSDS and data sheets below.


Novec 7100 is primarily used for cleaning light oils and particles. Novec 71IPA is blend of Novec 7100 with 4.5% IPA (by weight). This adds some polarity to the blend and helps with cleaning of polar materials.

the Novec fluids do have solubility for the lubricant used on the HDD media. Cleaning the media with these materials will remove the unbonded lubricant from the media. They will leave behind the bonded lubricant, but the media will likely only function for a short time afterwards without the unbonded lubricant.

Most cleaning operations are done in vapor degreasers. These are quite ideal for working with the Novec fluids as the fluid is constantly being distilled and filtered to ensure cleanliness, and they may also use ultrasonics for cleaning. These fluids are commonly used in the HDD industry for cleaning HSAs, heads at various stages of assembly and other HDD parts. In this case, I assume this will be a ambient cleaning done by either immersion or a spot cleaning.

For fingerprints, I would recommend using Novec 71IPA, but I would recommend that you order Novec 7100DL (higher purity version of Novec 7100) and blend it with IPA at your site just prior to cleaning to ensure the best product cleanliness.

Please let me know if you have other questions.
EMANDATARECOVERY will not be hold responsible for this advice this is for test first only.
Please get a bad donor hdd and get your finger prints all over and see if you are able to clean it first before trying on your drive.
what I will recommend is getting a usable hard drive put same non important data on it then get it dirty and try to clean it and then see if you can get the data with this product.

Sorry to have brought this up again since 2012.
But i have a broken HDD (broken donor) and tried just now a cleaning swab, that i happened to have on my workplace to clean zebra print heads, presaturated with 99.7% Isopropyl Alcohol and it stained the platters even more. It is actually worse than regular alcohol, it taints the platter, like the op said, and leaves a greasy coating all over the platter that does not come out even with regular alcohol.

There are many "secrets" and myths around these data repair markets and i want to reinforce this one so that this is not one of them anymore ( one of the myths ) so DONT USE cleaning swabs with Isopropyl Alcohol!

Having said that, if IPA is not good, what it effective for the consumer? dont tell me hard drive spray

acetone for me.

+1 for acetone.

btw, reading one platter (one side in fact) at a time works if u know how to do it. Actually it is the safest way to recover such drives, because u can be sure u won't damage other surfaces while reading one.

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

Really? It seems to me that if a head is damaging a surface, reading only from one other one at a time would make no difference to the damage done by continued use of the drive, unless the bad head is physically removed. I obviously am missing something or misunderstanding what you meant.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

of course i meant that only one head is mounted in that case.

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Adatmentés - Data recovery