Then do what you have seen on youtube. Unless you want pro training, that is gonna cost some thousand $...

I understand, I only seek advice from professionals. Unfortunately, not the advice to seek a professional Any words of wisdom are much appreciated. I'm sure that the one piece of advice is take your time and plan carefully.

If you insist in pursuing somehing here as an experiment, my best advice is suggesting as before to take the same model drive and practice. Test the drive, make sure it is working. Then try whatever you wanna try, then test again, and so on.

For the particular drive we have been referring to in this thread, IMHO and as other stated, it is not worth trying to do repair it. Since data is not important, the value in the time, part drives and the range of tools to make significant progress with very little chances that an attempt will be successful with no guarantee in being able to recover data does not make it a worthwile project.

Notice I mentioned "recover" and not "repair", as recovering data is something that may be done. Repairing is more than likely not feasible, due to media damage.

At this point, in order to get some value from this failure, the most obvious is RMAing the drive if still under warranty. If not, sell the drive "as is" for parts.

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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

Warranty will be voided, and I do not think anybody would buy this part from him, maybe for working spindle maybe but I doubt it

As scrap aluminum it is 20-50 eurocent or so...

About the rest, no comment. Should be clear that we don't give away info. In this case any further advice is completely useless.

So after 3 pages, the result is the same as the very first reply.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

I think the OP initially could have stated this more clearly. As it turns out, a lot of people have spent time and efforts to help... in something which turned out to be leisure time experimentation.

I reckon this is caused by the "Age of Google and Youtube". Whenever people get problems with their computers (windows, viruses, etc), they just google to find a cure. If the cure fails, the changes can most often be reversed... getting them onto dry land again. Thus Google makes everyone feel like they are computer experts, and able to repair anything.

But when it comes to HDDs things don't work quite like that. When trying to repair a HDD by applying a known "solution" you might be lucky. But most of the time not. And the changes are often irreversible for people without the proper tools.

While Google etc are great tools, I believe they are also the cause of overconfidence amongst laymen. And possibly also the cause of shallow knowledge in general... but that is another story.

+1 for Eleg - very good points.

+1 for Northwind - agreed, you nailed the diagnosis in the first reply.

Guys... I've gotta say that I'm pretty disappointed in this forum. All I've gotten was "bring it to a professional, bring it to a professional..." Which I take is the purpose of this forum to solicit business for yourselves.

Fact is I am a professional in the network industry and have repaired more problems than I can count. So fixing a spinning shinny thing is not as intimidating, than anything else I've done.

I also have more courtesy to other professionals than a lot of you. Really no time has been spent on this tread, other than a few people giving sound advice like Labtech and SAJunky. All that I was really looking for in the first place, was direction.

To the few that have tried to help thank you, it has helped.

That's a shame, but this sometimes happens when someone has unrealistic expectations.


I'm certainly not soliciting work for anyone, and I don't care what you do with your disk, so no it's not the purpose of the forum. However when we thought you wanted to recover your data, you received the correct advice that this issue is outside of the scope of successful DIY in almost every case. It would be irresponsible not to advise you to use a DR professional in that situation, if your data is important (as we first thought)! You even said:


So due to the part you wrote, which I put in bold, then of course we thought that the data was important to you!

For the benefit of other new readers of the forum, even though you don't like the advice that you received, that doesn't change how correct it was, for the best chance of recovering your data - all IMHO, of course. If you had clearly said at the beginning "this data is not worth enough to be worth using the services of a DR professional", then that would have been different, but wouldn't have changed your liklihood of success doing DIY, unfortunately. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[Edited to add: This thread explains the general limits of DIY, and why your reaction is not surprising:

diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html

"There are hundreds of other examples where the only answer could be "send the drive to a data recovery company". In these cases people get the best advise - visit a data recovery specialist, and in return we often see aggression." ]

Really? You had the answer to your question from the very first reply, given by me. I also said this type of failure is not DIY.
What else did you expect? Did you want us to push a remote recovery button and get your data back?

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Why not give the Seagate forum a go?

My friend, no need to be disappointed here from anyone

sometimes when someone is BADLY sick he consults a DR (DR=Doctor not Data Recovery) and from 1000`s of doctors there, you will find
A- Cheap Doctors (with stupid ugly advices)
B- Pro. Doctors which might cost 10x (sometimes) for 2nd. opinion diagnose

now, for this case, it is ALWAYS your decision on how far you will go with your Disease

either pay the cheap DR 20$ for his CHEAP advice, or 200$ for Pro. (expert on the field)

so do not think that all DR are the same. the choice is always yours to decide

and do not expect Pro. DR to give you their Valuable Advices (based on their LONG experience for FREE) if you understand what am going to express here

no bad feeling.

you will find plenty of good n bad advices here, some of them might kill your drive, this all depends, but remember, bad attitude here leads you nowhere except ignorance from really PRO. guys here. and will end-up with 2 options left:

1- coming back here with another ID/name
2- leave for good (i doubt it)

and good luck

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

Usually the 1) is detected / sniffed .
So said can someone whistle when the trolls are gone ?

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

Bohack, you had been identified as a troll.

My intent was not to troll... I actually was seeking advice from professionals. I can understand the reluctance of a "Pro" to give advice they have learned from experience, if that is their livelihood. However network engineers have the same mentality and do not have the same tact.

I will still post my success or failure in hopes this tread can act as a learning outcome rather than a bad thread or "hilarious thread" as it was labeled in a reply.

This thread and some of the people in it had helped me identify that it was not a PCB problem and was a head problem. I have now verified the head problems and will gamble that I can change the head and the tracking on the bad spot is redundant. It is a gamble and I will go big or go home. Either way I will have an answer and will have gained experience.

To the "Pro's": Sorry I was never serious enough to send this drive out to recover the files that were lost. I will also not go out and steal your business since this is not something I would do for anyone else, because it is a giant PIA and I would never gamble for someone else with their data.

Just my humble thoughts...

I seriously believe that you was not intending to steal Pro's business, while some on the forum would think otherwise. As a network engineer you are well educated and perhaps you earn better money tha many Pro's.
Before you go with head transplant, you can try what Pro's are doing (even they don't tell you that). Clean the heads from the powder (under microscope) and see if work. Some laboratories go even with cleaning platters, others will keep swapping HDA's (as dirty platters will kill new set of heads quick) till all data is squiezed out.

Are you for real? First off you were WRONG about the failure, despite being so sure about it.




Next you seem to get pretty upset a the fact that others have opinions that differ from yours. You blame a poor English for not udnerstanding, but your English seems very good, although probably at selective moments

Now you think we are threatened that someone would steal our business? there are DR outfits popping up everywhere, albeit many are not so great and dont last long, but these are not a threat so why would a genuine user with genuine data loss be a threat??

Also, how is your advice useful and valid to when the Pro's use expensive equipment in expensive laboratories backed by extensive knowledge, skills and experience.

@Bohack

I do not think you are a 'troll' these are SAJunkys words. We tried to help and gave you the best advice based on your situation, which was to consult a professional. I appreciate you are disappointed with this forum, I think this is because you were unaware as to how complex some aspects of data recovery can be and your expectations for the help you would receive was slightly exaggerated. But none of this makes you a troll, and however you decide to proceed with your data recovery I wish you good luck

hdduy:
What makes you so upset?
I was wrong about this particuliar case, but I was right about what you would do in such case, but advertized otherwise. So if you advice to others what you would do in the first place, I will keep peace with you....
Re trolling, it wasn't my vote, not at all! You seem to missed something: