hddguy wrote:
I have multiple variants of this model as parts, and if I didnt I would find no trouble finding one to purchase.
I accept that your not going to change the heads yourself, but if you want my opinion dont leave the disk with whoever it is with. If they cannot find a donor part they are obviously not so experienced in WD physical repairs, and probably your data is safer with someone who has more experience.
For this specific model, there are good donors in alternate models, alternate families and to some extent slight variations on capacity assuming head map remains consistent and compatible. But identification of the parts is only half the battle, heads need to be exchanged and then there are generally a bucketload of complications, extraction of the data cannot be done on standard equipment with standard software because of stability issues which are common on near enough all cases like this. To further complicate it, it has native USB interface which can be difficult to work with, converted to SATA it is encrypted by AES...
If your happy with how things are going, and your sure your data is in good hands, then good luck with it. But otherwise, find someone else who can really help you.
It sounds to me like you are the pro for WD products, but if you are real professional, than simply provide exact, valuable help to the world. When you have got the multiple parts, and especially headstacks for example for my drive, why do not you simply say? "
Hey, helloo, I have what are you looking for, you have to buy this type, with that DCM and etc. If you want I have it and can sell it to you. or you just look it up here or there to find it....
I know I can buy it from ebay there is couple of them, but which one is compatible for mine? If you know than advise me one and tell why this one, and do not tell me that label codes mean nothing.
Maybe you did couple of successful changes and recoveries but do not want share your know-how to the world.
After all, I am not interesting in how to successfully swap heads or board or whatever, its job for real prof. , but it is at least interesting to know how the products are labelled and what the letters/digit means in the code...