I attempted a platter swap on 2.5 250GB toshiba. It was a practice, so my plan was to take platter out, put back in, not a true swap. In the end, I broke the drive, it clicks and does not id in mhdd.
well it's not scratching at least.

Here was my procedure.

1. unscrew top / enclosure.
2. use packaging tape to tape center of disk part to edge of drive. This is so it doesn't spin, so I can unscrew the center of platter screw.
3. unscrew screw at center of platter, then un-tape. metal bracket comes off stuck to tape.
4. unscrew the screw that hold plastic ramp in place. move ramp as far as it will go, a few millimeters, so that disk is unobstructed.
5. turn upside-down, dump disk onto paper. I made it soft underneath to cushion impact.
6. flip disk over using another piece of paper on top so the disk is back to top-side up.
7. slide disk from paper back onto drive. bumped edges a bit.
8. screw platter bracket back in, move ramp into place, screw that back in also.


That's basically it. I did make at least one mistake (probably many depends what you consider a mistake ). the first time I plugged drive in after completing procedure it did not spin up and made a rapid click-click sound. I took off cover and went to investigate.

It turned out that the the lower arm that extends to the lower head which reads the underside of the disk, was out of place. While the heads on the ramp were correct, the lower arm was actually bent above the platter. This made it so the arm was immobile. not really bent though. I gave it a tap and it flexed below the platter. then the arm was mobile.

So now the disk spins up and I get the clicking sound like the arm is swinging around and does not know where to go.

I REALLY think the heads are fine because they were on the plastic track the entire time. I'd like any comments or insights. I could take pictures. I don't really know much on the technical aspect, but I'd like to get this procedure down, so I can fix my laptop drive with a dead motor.

might open it back up and take a look tomorrow. can't put to waste the drive just yet.

OK amazing but now you will need to invest in 50 more drives and do it over and over again until you find out how to do this one. Nobody will encourage this in a non clean environment and help to do platter swaps here on the forum. If you want to learn how to do this one to fix your own drive then invest in some more drives and continue to practice on this one and do your own R&D to you get it right. Sorry this is not too professional to do this outside of a cleanroom.

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Iorana Haraharaini

thanks for the reply. I have another drive coming in the mail. If I have any specific questions I will ask. I really hope it works the second try. my data isn't worth 50 hard drives, not even 1k cash. A couple more hard drives and no good results I will give up and go for the real swap and pray.

In theory the platter swap should be easy on these drives. not sure if it is the same for all single-platter laptop drives. for me, only two internal screws to undo, and hardly have to touch the arm at all. but like I said I made that mistake where the arm was misaligned.

Incidentally, why do you think you need a platter swap?

What's the problem with the drive?

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
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I don't know what the problem with the drive is. I started having very slow read/write rate, then the next day, could not boot from drive. when it's plugged into my desktop computer, it does not spin up, so I think the motor is the problem. no clicking sounds. I did replace the PCB, with a spare one but that did not work.

since its a single-platter drive, I thought the platter swap would be a good route to get the data. but I don't know much about how a hard disks work, so I am just guessing.

maybe someone could answer me this question: if/when I do the actual platter swap, would there be a reason to also swap the PCB as well?

This all seems very ill-conceived to me

Extremely unlikely you have a motor problem, the really old (40/60/80gb drives) had spindle issues, but can't say I've seen it on newer ones like this.

Also, PCB's are NOT interchangeable on these drives, they're unique so straight PCB swap will NEVER work.

Where did you get the idea that a pro recovery would be $1k?

Why not at least get it checked out by someone who knows what they're doing?

It's your data,so your choice but you're going the right way about wasting $$ and time on what will likely be a fruitless operation.

I wish you all the best of luck.

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

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

thanks for the response. So if its not a motor problem maybe it is the PCB. what is the cheapest price I could get for a good service? Under 200 and I would go for it. the MK2555GSXJ in working condition is under 40 dollars on ebay, so I plan to pick up at max 2-3 of these to mess around with removing the platter. The one I broke, was a spare I already had.

Right now it's summer, so I don't care about time too much and it it only took me 20 minutes for that first platter removal I did. but researching online a couple of hours...

If you would, let me know if platter swap could work, and what advice you would give. since you said the PCB is unique, I assume I will have to swap the PCB and platter to a new drive, when/if I attempt this.

On a HDD you have contaminated in a non-clean environment, and potentially caused internal mechanical complications by attempting the job yourself?

Most places you would be paying $200 just for diagnosis charge. Ironically, assuming the initial problem was a simple PCB failure, the price of $200 wouldn't have been too far wrong.

$200 would just cover the extensive diagnose required at this point.
And paying taxes on it... (the IRS or its equivalent have something to say about it, you know !) . No further comment needed.

You might as well keep playing with it with the expectation that you are likely just wasting money on the parts drives. There likely was a great chance that your project could have been under $1000, but I suspect that no lab will do it for less than $1000 now that the platter will likely need to be inspected, removed and cleaned, as well as the heads are likely toast now, too.

Good luck.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I understand OP says he did NOT open the original drive (but he intends to) and that he played with some other drive first.
Therefore, original platter is not contaminated YET, heads COULD BE ok etc.

@OP:
I think you've got it all wrong. Let's start again from scratch:
Does your drive try to spin up and fails? Is it making ANY sound when powered on? Like brrr-brrrrr-brrrrrrr? Put your ear next to it and pay attention. If the drive is making such noises, then it 's either stiction (not a DIY), or motor is stuck (often for these drives and not a DIY either). There is easy solution for both of these failures and assuming your original drive is at normal shape, it would cost you more than what you mention, but by no means $1k.
If your drive is completely dead, then there is a problem with your pcb. And no, you can't do this on your own, and NO you dont have to move platter. A pro can do this for you for a fair fee, maybe a little more than the amount you mention. Possibly even less if you supply a compatible pcb (maybe the drive you played with has a compatible pcb).
Forget about moving the platter. It will have only one result: You spending money on spare drives, and end up with no data.

Have your drive evaluated by a decent pro. Some offer the evaluation for free. We can recommend some members of this forum who are from your area, and can help you with your drive.

_________________
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@northwind:

I was just about to write something similar As you said, I also think that the OP is saying that they have an "original" drive which they have not yet opened. However this wasn't clear at the beginning of the story, and so it caused some confusion for the readers...

Good call...there may be hope, yet.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

okay, sorry for the confusion. I have not touched the broken drive with my data on it, besides doing a pcb swap. but I learned from this thread that that doesn't work for these drives.

I have a 40x magnifier, so today I can take a thorough at the pcb to try and "see" the problem. not sure if you can always see it. but I have an identical pcb that I can compare to. maybe if this is the problem, and I find someone to repair it, ~200 dollars.

The drive does not make any audible sounds to me. if I put my hand on-top I feel some odd vibration at first but not constant.

Anyways I am probably going to try practicing platter swapping. because if I can do it successfully on a different drive, then my problem is solved... inexpensive. I get the feeling it probably will not work. if I do not succeed any better on the next drive, I'll reconsider I suppose.

I just had an idea. the next drive I get, I will scan for a log of bad sectors. then I will open it up to not-clean air for 15 minutes. then I will check if it still works -that it reads the service area and whatever else - and if it does re-scan for bad sectors to see the "damage".

Then I can see the effect of opening the enclosure on this drive model. If its a bad effect, then there is no point to attempt a platter-swap.

It seems to me that you choose to ignore what we're all saying.

Not a problem with this, good luck.

_________________
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The price of success and learning often involve a lot of frustration, it seems. Good luck anyway.

Here is the update

I had some interesting results anyways.

On a working ebay drive , I took platter out, put it back in. This was a success. the result was I got about 1k blocks with very slow reads, and only 100 or so uncorrectable.

So I did the actual platter swap. I swapped platters and pcb boards between ebay drive and my broken drive.

ebay drive no longer id in MHDD.
formerly broken drive did id in MHDD oddly enough. Every read attempt put up the abort flag though.

I didn't get my data unfortunately. I have to go back to a back-up from 4 months previous. I'm ready to do this now.

This guy is trying to learn how to repair a hard drive and all anyone has done is tell him he's stupid for not

A. Using a clean room

B. Letting a Data Recovery service gauge him on hard drive recovery

Do you think that the people who repair hard drives are gods from above, give me a break. Pass knowledge down to people who need it or get off the forum.

he chose to do a platter swap on the original drive, after the only previous swap resulted in failure. IMHO a platter swap alone was never going to work. He ignored all the proper warnings, and the result was as expected. The knowledge needed to be complimented by some experience, probably some tools and even more probably some common sense.
My 2 bob