Morning Gurus,

Having had help from my previous Seagate HDD question, and even though it was not recovered I have to say thanks to all who responded to my requests for assistance.

Now I have another drive with an issue. While I am purchasing PC3000 (per gurus recommendations) and it should be arriving within a few weeks, I hope that some may be able to shed light on this issue.

Samsung MP0402H makes muffled clicking but does not spin up (not the usual loud clicking). Drive was not dropped or knocked, Upon PCB investigation I have found a slight hole in the padding which leads me to believe the component marked in the picture may have developed a fault.



your insights about how to proceed and test would be appreciated, I have already seen this thread but it may not be the same issue.

samsung-mp0402h-motor-problem-t12694.html?hilit=MP0402h#p87553

Best and TIA

Logical

D2 appears to be a 5V TVS diode. The component in parallel with it is a capacitor.

If the drive is making noises, then the above components will be OK. To me it sounds like your drive may have a stiction fault.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Do your customers know you know very little about HDD's and Data Recovery? You should be outsourcing everything. You will end up losing someones critical data.

Do you work for R3 Data Recovery by any chance? This is the only company I am aware of which has been formed in the last few months.

Hi fzabkar,

Will investigate this upon client go-ahead. And thank you for your informative answer re components.

She's only after one file and has a drive with a backup 2 weeks old. The file however will take her a couple of days to enter the data back into.(she cant afford specialist as its her own SB)

HDD Spaz, nope I don't work for 3R and I do advise all my customers that I can undertake logical work and am branching out into learning the more advanced data recovery methods.

I will always advise my clients to seek a dedicated and experienced specialist if their data is mission critical. My clients have a month to month contact for their IT support and I only keep them by being honest.

From reading on this forum I can understand your concern. I just want to learn more.

Will keep you posted on my progress with this one.

Best to all.

Logical.

I see this a few times here now...:

1 Open a DR shop

2. Take clients work without an idea of how to deal with it

3. Explain the problem at hddguru and hope for a good answer (Maybe this will be diagnopstic report for client! )

4. Attempt repairs without relevant equipment, knowledge, skills or experience

5. Charge customer for attempted work and send back unrecovered media.

6. Client sends to reputable established DR firm who charge additional fees because media has been opened and worked on

7. Client gets data recovered at 3x the cost of what it would have costed originally


I have no problems with people wanting to learn and get into data recovery. I encourage it, but not when there is this perception that it is a simple job with 1 click solutions for everything. This only results in unhappy clients, poor service and tarnishes the reputation of the industry which makes it more difficult for the real professionals to make a living.

If you are really interested in DR, you should learn to walk before you can run...

hddguy: Thanks for the info,

Business is primarily IT support managed services and retail to businesses, Started out years ago, then resolved a few logical issues. Bought get data back and r-studio etc and things moved on.

Don't have a shop only an office, Don't charge clients for diagnosis, don't do the work unless I have practiced it previously and do outsource or recommend they go elsewhere if I cannot do the work.

Have resolved seagate busy errors thanks to the kind info provided here and have also been successful in some cases where diodes have blown, and also with the samsung bridging fixes.

Have amassed over a hundred faulty drives with which to test / open and learn from. And have now the funds to allow.

Already have PC3000 flash for usb sticks, and an Aoyue 852A+ station. Have a clean cabinate, bench and tools, one head swap tool from HDD tools and awaiting PC3000 for windows and UDMA data extractor.

I understand that having the knowledge to use the above will take time. I do hope that I am more than crawling, however as you say not quite running yet.

Thats why I joined to get involved and learn rather than lurking.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

best

Logical.

All seems pretty honest to be fair, as long as you DO recognise your limits and don't risk clients data the i wish you all the best of luck!

Please feel free to contact me if you need any help.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Hi pcimage,

Thanks for the reply, may be asking a lot of questions tho

To all, with regard to the Samsung, I had a similar drive in my learing pile. Took it apart to determine the layout of the internals and practiced manually spinning the drive and carefully mounting and unmounting the heads on the ramp.

Upon opening up my clients drive it WAS stiction. I gently rotated the platter and the heads remained intact.

While continually rotating the platter I gently parked the heads back onto the ramp. Buttoned the drive back up and hey presto, cloned the drive and now have the clients data back.

Not much for your gurus, but a real success for me.

All the best

Logical (50% success rate now )

Very sensible approach, and you reaped the rewards

As this is case was within your skills, and you practised first, it's my opinion that your were perfectly entitled to proceed on a live drive.

Sadly most DIYers don't have this mentality and just plough on regardless, just to avoid paying a pro.
Well done!!

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Thanks for your comments, appreciated.

Just glad I've a happy customer, and had a drive to practice on first.

Best

Logical.

It was wise to practice this beforehand. One comment is that when dealing with stiction you need to inspect the heads thoroughly after they have been freed. Once they are back in the parking area it may all seem well and good, but one or more sliders could be damaged. Powering on a drive that has been freed from stiction, but now has a missing or loose head slider, will end in tears and loss of of data.

In my experience 3.5" heads are more robust, obviously as the components are bigger, but you'll sometimes find that after freeing heads from a 2.5" drive that the slider/s are damaged and a headswap is required. As you get more experience you'll find improved techniques for freeing stiction and the rate of damaged head sliders will decrease.

Be careful and good luck.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

Cheers Nick.

@ HDD Spaz - Not one of my staff or partners.

Thanks for the mention though