Noob here,

I'm trying to find replacement parts for an older HDD I crashed a long-long time ago (like 7 years ago) - photos attached.

After a hard drop, the drive quit working and all I get is the click of death. I'm not sure if a simple PCB swap will fix the problem, or if I also need to try a head swap? Over the years, I got bored, opened the case and practiced head removal/installation (I know not a great idea); so I probably need to replace the heads as they have contacted one another in the past...

Good news - the platters appear to be in good condition, but the heads may be damaged due to my "tinkering." I was hoping you could tell me which manufacturer numbers any replacement parts must match. Instructions regarding how to verify that the PCB is properly functioning would also be appreciated.

I purchased the adapter that allows me to plug the HDD into the IDE slot on my desktop computer. After many years, the drive still powers up and the click-of-death is still there (not that I expected it to go away). I have performed a recovery in the past on a different drive with corrupt MFT using Runtime GetDataBack software and that went excellent. RECOMMENDATIONS regarding the best SOFTWARE and DATA RECOVERY COMPANIES would also be appreciated!

Good advice is always appreciated!

Thanks for your help. Ah, the youthful ignorance of an aspiring engineer...

DRIVE DETAILS
Top Label
IBM Travelstar
MODEL: DJSA-220 (20.00 GB)
Made in Thailand
MFG: JUL-00
P/N: 07N5139
MLC: F80309

PCB Label
07N5686
F80305A
L00025
L3Z9

Very unlikely it is a PCB issue

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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

...and media damage can be almost invisible at naked eye but it kills new heads at power on or in little time.

A speck of dust is like hitting a bowling ball on the autobhan.. at 170km/h

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On a clear disk you can seek forever.

So, to sum it all up:

A drive (which by the way is not the easiest around) with -possibly- bad heads,
has been opened in a non-controlled environment,
had its heads removed by someone with zero experience in the field
then had heads installed again by same person

and now will have heads re-removed and re-reinstalled by the same person.

No offense.

Chances you will recover a single byte is .... zero? OK, to be fair, it is 0.5%.

Let me explain why.

You opened the drive in non-controlled environment. Contamination. Dust, humidity, debris etc are now on the platter. It would take a long time to explain the consequences of this, but it's more or less what Keetah says above.
Then you moved heads without tools and experience and as i understand you just moved heads out of their parking area. With no other precaution. This most probably means media damage (ie. game over).
Then you re-installed heads, moving them to the parking area, and heads were already damaged. So more media damage.

Should I go on?

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SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

If its the 'best' your after, why would you allow someone with minimal or even no experience get to it first? All the potential effects of this have been explained already.

This is a pretty old model, been around for some time, im pretty confident that most (if not all) seasoned professionals could have handled this for you.

Now at the very least you will have a diagnostic charge because it has been contaminated, some firms may even turn you away. Assuming your data can be saved, the process of getting it will be much lengthier because additional precautionary measures have to be put in place to prevent damage, such as cleansing procedures.

I appreciate it is your HDD and your data and the decision to try DIY is ultimately yours to make. But it doesnt make it the right decision. In fact it is definitively the wrong decision if data is important.

Maybe someone in this forum will offer to help, but it probably wont be cheap. You have a budget in mind? Bear in mind that you get what you pay for...

Well after a hard drop and heads clicking this one alone does not look good at all. But now opened and examined this one looks even worse. I think you have gotten all the good advice you can from here and there is not much to say on this one. But I agree you will not get back your data on this HDD and if you do take it to a recovery company this one will not be cheap at all from what you have done.

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Iorana Haraharaini

We'd be willing to give it a shot. Feel free to PM me.

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