Did a successful Seagate Freeplay swap with non matching donors:

Patient:
Seagate Freeplay 1TB
ST1000LM010
Site: SU

Donor:
Seagate Freeplay 1.5TB
ST1500LM003
Site: WU

Both 8 heads. Hope it helps someone.

Cheers.

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Nice one Nick

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Hey Nick,

I also have a ST1000LM010 that I was able to image 5 out of 6 heads after turning one off with the DDI. Site code is SU but only donor I can find has site TK. All other required specs match. The 2 drives you had were made at different sites in China; my donor is made in Thailand--think that will make much of a difference? I appreciate your opinion.

Sam

My donor was a different model, different site code, different fw, different everything, head map was the same though.

With these newer F3 drives that notion of matching certain criteria seems to have gone out of the window. If you could image 5 out of 6 heads then I wouldn't imagine your donor was a bad match. Mind you, I don't have a lot of information to go on.

Does the one head not read at all on DDI? PIO? Read ahead disabled? Does it not read any data on that head at all?

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Data Recovery Cape Town

I think in these days of MASS production, 'Assembly plant' does not necessarily mean 'Manufacturing plant'...... Like Nick, I have had success with some pretty odd 'matching' donors...

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Nick--

I guess I wasn't clear--the imaging on 5 of the 6 heads was done before the head swap. Head swap hasn't been done yet--donor is coming today.
Correct--DDI is unable to read any data from head 0 on any pass though I didn't want to be too invasive and possibly do damage. I'm still learning the DDI so I'll look into read ahead.

Sam

Update:

Head swap with ST1000LM010 patient site code: SU donor site code: TK worked like a charm!

...and it feels that much better since this drive belongs to a customer who walked into the shop as an absolute wreck, sobbing with tears streaming down her face.

Sam

I bet she will wrap her arms around you and call you her hero when you hand over her life long data!!!!!

I've found that more and more on Seagate and WD drives, where I used to be really picky about matching parts and label information, now I do more of a visual inspection of the heads themselves. You'll see heads in drives that on paper couldn't possibly be compatible and they work like a charm. I've used heads from 500GB drives to get 640GB drives operational. It's now seems to be getting where site codes are all but meaningless as well.

When a potential donor costs $299 and up, one can afford to mix and match. The higher the donor price the more likely people are going to find something else that works.

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thanks for sharing

Samick,

I also have a ST1000LM010 that I was able to image 5 out of 6 heads after turning one off with the DDI.

I saw your post here. I also have ST1000ML010. Took it to a professional place and they told me that 1 of 6 heads is bad and I should go to their friends "CSI - clean room" to do recovery which would cost me close to USD1400.00 but no guarantee of data recovery.

I am really dumb about these stuffs. CAn you show me step by step how you image 5 out of 6 heads after turning one off with DDI? Can you show me where I can download this DDI as well?

You already imaged 5/6 heads with DDI, then sent it to a bait and switch company that suggested a real pro for $1400, but you still need DDI to image the drive? Did I miss something here?

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

No I did not do any imaging on 5/6. I do not even know how to do partial imaging. I just saw a post here saying that you can do partial image using DDI. I wanted to know if someone can show me step by step how to do it.

I meant to say that I took it to a professional data service company, they told me that 1 out 6 heads is bad. THey told me that I need to take it to a CSI-clean room to do it and that would cost me USD1400 but no guarantee.

guaranteed cost for a no guarantee recovery? That seems to be odd...

I am ignoring in this field and thus, they saw it coming.

I saw Samick posted on here that said," I also have a ST1000LM010 that I was able to image 5 out of 6 heads after turning one off with the DDI." I am hoping either Samick and/or someone show me this method so that I can retrieve as much data as I can myself. I do not even know what a DDI is ,and how can I figure out which head is bad and disable it.

You would need to purchase a DDI (Deepspar Disk Imager) unit. It's not some piece of software you can download.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

OMG....DDI costs USD3600.

hm...............can anyone here show me any other option?

I bought a donor drive. Mine said WU for site. But the donor said TK for site. Everything is the same. I went to local data servicing places and asked them if you would me swap the heads. They refused because I have use their complete data recovery services which would cost anywhere from USD1000 and up. I do not know to swap these heads and afraid to do it myself


Can anyone here give me any other betters and/or advices other than paying these professions USD1000 and up with no guarantee?

We would charge a lot less than this, and work on "no-fix no-fee". Assuming the drive has not been tampered with.

There is no DIY solution for your problem

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