I have a laptop Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 (320G / SATA 3) drive that appears to have bit the dust. I have checked all cabling and power. The drive powers on, you can hear the heads seek (soft repetitive ticking). I have tried it in both a Mac and a PC. Neither sees the drive, the BIOS in the PC shows nothing. It's not there. It's not all that old (about 9 months) and supposedly it was not dropped or anything.

I had this problem myself a while back with WD 3.5" drive - at least a similar scenario. Taking it to a DR pro was cost prohibitive, but I really wanted the data. So, I took a gamble and found another controller board with the same firmware version and same model and desoldered the NVRAM from the old board and put it on the new one and installed it on the drive. It got me functioning again long enough to recover the data.

I've never messed with a 2.5" drive before...

First, is it possible I could do the same thing I had done with my previous drive or is it even worth trying? If it might be worth trying, how much of a pain is it to swap the NVRAM?

Anything else worth trying? I have a feeling that they aren't going to be willing to spend more than $200-$300 on the recovery as it's my pastor's HD, and although he'd really love to get the data back, I don't think he's willing to shell out what it costs to take it somewhere that's gonna work on it in a clean room.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - or even just letting me know it's most likely a hopeless cause.

Replacing the PCB on a clicking Hitachi and hoping it will work, is like changing oils to a car that suffers from bust pistons and hoping you will drive home.

Less than 0.1%.

Unless it suffers from mimics (that's the 0.1%).

Does the drive spin down after a while or it keeps spinning?

Also, in your previous experience with that WD 3.5" you had success swapping the pcb, did it click? I highly doubt it.

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Here is the noise being made - perhaps "clicking" is not the best term to use:

http://arlo.net/harddrive.mp3

This was made with an Edirol R09-HR using the built in mics, AGC, levels set to 100, mic sensitivity set to high and the recorder sitting on top of the bare drive... I then took that and normalized it so what you hear is MUCH louder than the actual noise being made by the drive (the click at the very beginning is me turning on the power strip to power up the drive). As for the WD 3.5" I got working for a while by replacing the board, yes it did indeed make a similar noise from what I remember.

As for spinning down - no it does not. The pattern you hear in the audio file repeats over and over and over and over, 5 minutes later, same pattern. I also got a little more clarification on what the drive has seen:


I realize that more could be known - such as if the laptop was on when it was dropped, but don't have an answer for that at the moment. Also, being an electronics tech, I know full well that water damage can cause electrical stress and failure at a much later date.

Also, here are photos of the exact drive in question.




I have another message with more details and also an MP3 of the noise the drive is making - it's waiting on moderator approval (I'm guessing because of the link to the sound file on arlo dot net slash harddrive dot mp3). Perhaps "clicking" was not the best choice of terms.

This was made with an Edirol R09-HR using the built in mics, AGC, levels set to 100, mic sensitivity set to high and the recorder sitting on top of the bare drive... I then took that and normalized it so what you hear is MUCH louder than the actual noise being made by the drive (the click at the very beginning is me turning on the power strip to power up the drive). As for the WD 3.5" I got working for a while by replacing the board, yes it did indeed make a similar noise from what I remember.

As for spinning down - no it does not. The pattern you hear in the audio file repeats over and over and over and over, 5 minutes later, same pattern. I also got a little more clarification on what the drive has seen:


I realize that more could be known - such as if the laptop was on when it was dropped, but don't have an answer for that at the moment. Also, being an electronics tech, I know full well that water damage can cause electrical stress and failure at a much later date.

Sounds like stiction to me.

What you do now depends on how much you value your data.

No doubt you'll get advice on relieving this stiction by "percussive maintenance" and DIY crap like that.

By all means give it a go if your data is worthless, but if you value your data then take it to a pro, shouldnt be to expensive AT THIS STAGE before its tampered with.

Your data your choice!

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Sounds like stiction to me too.
PCImage has given you the right advice here; if you value your data, consult a pro. Also, these attempts:

can make things worse. Do not attempt to power up the drive anymore.

Good luck.

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Agree with above opinions, sounds like a stiction.
Just fixed one today the same model and the capacity.


Very useful advice indeed. Powering up the drive will make further damage to the surface.

Ok, "to expensive" is a relative term... In order to get a better idea on which way to proceed (or make a decision on how valuable the data is) - ballpark figure for a reputable company? More than $300? $500??? It's not my drive or my data, I'm just trying to help a brother out...

Is this pretty accurate on what needs to be done?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXxtSUwC2wk

No this is different failure.

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Ok, I did some checking around, and it looks like it'll be $500 - $2000. I got a quote from Secure Data Recovery Sevices of $600 up to $1900. Checked with the drive owner and he has said that he's not willing to spend that kind of money. I can't blame him, as I've been in the same situation myself and came to the same conclusion that I'd rather take the risk of losing it all or maybe get lucky and recover some data.

So that being said, can anyone give me some useful tips on "next best" practices to minimize risk and best chance of recovery for a DIY who's not an idiot (although I realize that the DR pros probably will think I am). I've watched Scott Moulton's "Hard Drive Recovery" videos on YouTube (7 parts) and I've got the basics - but even more detail would be useful if I resort to having to open this up. At least he seems realistic in pointing out that "your grandma ain't gonna wanna pay what the DR pros charge". Not knocking the pros, as they do provide a useful service - but I'd be willing to bet that only 1 in 100 people (not companies or corporations) are going to want to pay the price to let someone who does it for a living handle it.

Right now my plan of action is to try the drive in a few different positions quickly. If that doesn't work I plan on opening it up to see what the exact problem is and using the Ubuntu Rescue Remix CD with ddrecover if I am able to get things moving freely again to try and image the drive. Heck, if the heads are trashed, I may even try a swap with another drive as Scott showed in his presentation.

Scott Moulton's company offers fixed price data recovery for US$800 plus parts:
http://myharddrivedied.com/hard-drive-recovery

If you decline to go with professional recovery, then see the following thread, but heed the warnings:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/FreeAgent- ... 242#M11384

Here is another DIY story:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22119#p148637

BTW, the professional approach is to use a non-magnetic screwdriver to rotate the platters in their normal direction of motion while firmly pushing the head stack towards its parking position in one continuous motion. That's about it. I've only seen one data recovery pro say that he routinely replaces the heads in such cases. All the others appear to examine them for damage and then power up the drive if they look OK.

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I just want to make sure this isn't an electronic board failure - can someone tell me that it's not the PCB (I wouldn't be hearing the clicking if it was the board, etc...)? I'd rather open the drive as a last resort. I am an electronics tech so I do have a DVM, soldering iron, o'scope, etc... Are there checks I can make to verify I'm not dealing with a board failure?

According to the sound uploaded. IMO I can definitely say it is not a PCB.

Opened it up, heads were over the platters, nothing moving. Rotated platters with pliers while pushing heads back towards the parking area. I assume I'm f'd...

http://youtu.be/_q974dEOGpc

Totally now.

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