Hi there!

I have the hdd described above on an external rack. The other day it fell from a 20/30 cm height while working.

After a couple of minutes the dreaded noise (clicking) started and I immediately shut it down. As far as I managed to look, apparently it doesn't have any head bent over.

Is there a way I can do on my own to retrieve some data from it ?? any trick you pros might know ?? I can't afford the fees a data recovery centre charges nor the data inside is all that valuable. If after such recovery the disk becomes dead/unusable/bricked it's not a problem, all I need is to recover some folders inside.


Thank you for your attention, and hope any of you has any solution.

Best Regards

Heads will be bad and almost certainly some media damage.

My advice would be to forget about it unless you really need your data, as DIY attempts will 99.999% end in failure.

These drives aren't easy to work with, even for some "pros"

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PC Image Data Recovery
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pcimage is right,

These drives are not easy to work with, and any attempt you may go through will cost you at least the price of a new matching donor drive, ending most probably in a botched and non recoverable drive.

Sorry about that

Ditto.

Accept the data loss and carry on or wait for better times.

Head problem + possible media damage, this means cleanroom work , donor(s) and everything else needed = high price.

Unfortunately some of the data on the disc is irrecoverable by any other means. It had some "value" but not enough to spend more than 1000€ on a DR service (not even 500€!).

Yeah I imagined that the scenario would be that one - another brick (adding to 3x 2TB WD Caviar Green, about the same issue - One external drive that failed bought another one to try for a board swap with no success and another one that also failed )

I was wondering / hoping that there would be some trick to override this major mechanical failures to access at least part of the data even if temporarily that I was unaware of. Guess not.

I guess also that trying to buy another External HDD (in a long shot to find a compatible donor) would be a waste of time and money right??

Just clarify one thing to me please:

If I happened to buy, just hypothetically, a new HDD from the same brand, model, firmware and tried a head swap in a clean room (a very hard and tricky process even for pros) and such process didn't output any favorable results, could I try to re-assemble the NEW HDD and make it normally work?? or by the time I opened it, it becomes a dead HDD??

Thank you again for all your answers!

One last note before your next comments,

Yesterday I opened the HDD to actually see the conditions that the heads were in, and noticed that no head or head parts were bent (as I have seen in other drives with seriously head failure) and also to see what was the head doing. So I noticed that it just goes back and forth being unable to position itself. Could it be a pre am failure and could, as I asked already, a head replacement be sufficient to access the data?

thank you once again.

No, it's almost certainly a head failure. When dropped the heads which usually ride on a microscopic cushion of air hit the platters (which they otherwise never actually touch). The drive will need headstack replacement and will most likely have tons of bad sectors requiring professional imaging tools to get what's left of the data. Even if you could successfully replace the heads yourself, your operating system would hang when trying to access a drive with so many bad sectors. Though you might get away with using a tool like DD_Rescue to image afterward. Plus if the damage affected the service area (firmware) you'll need a tool like PC-3000 to get it to initialize.

Unless you're looking to get into a career in data recovery and just want the experience, don't waste the money buying another drive to swap heads yourself. Everybody botches up their first half dozen head-swaps, that's why we practice on old 40Gb junk drives until we get the hang of it. Takes a real surgeon's touch to pull off. Even pro's with the right tools sometimes ruin the new heads when replacing.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Oh and that sweeping motion of the headstack is it looking for the service area trying to initialize the drive but failing because the heads are toast.

If you need pro recovery let me know. I'll only charge you $700 (plus parts) for this one.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

As far as re-assembling a donor drive after a botched headswap is concerned, don't bother. Hard drive heads are so sensitive that they almost never survive a second swap even when done by a pro. In my lab we don't bother to even attempt rebuilding the donors after a successful recovery because it just isn't worth the time for the occasional one that still works after. Or the cost of the air filters on the clean room.

If you are going to attempt your own headswap use this matching guide as a reference:
http://www.donordrives.com/hard-drive-pcb-donor-match

It doesn't explain everything you need to know about matching heads, but it's a good start. Just buying another external and finding a match is extremely improbable.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

data-medics is there a web store that you can point me to buy only the head for the HDD ? I saw an exact same model, and P/N on ebay but it costs over 220 euro (around $305 USD). So if I'm gonna try to recover some data is better that I buy only the head. I'm also buying another drive to receive the data. This time a 7200 rpm 32MB cache 3TB toshiba drive (found a cheap one) since the old one was 5400 rpm although is a 3,5''.

Also if you could point me in the right direction, i mean, online free tutorials, guides or even bibliography or manuals with information regarding data recovery and board and head swapping (I won't mess around platter swapping since I don't have appropriate tools) I would be very grateful, at least to give it a try to check weather or not I could invest on this area or not. I have quite a bunch of old IDE HDD's laying around, mostly 3,2 and 10 GB Quantum Fireball's and 10, 20 and 40 GB Seagate barracuda so this could be a starting point to practice.

Also regarding the subject on this post, if I manage to get a new head, after swapping, what would be the procedure to access the data and take it out of there ASAP??

thank you for all your support and patience.

Best Regards.

You cannot just buy one head... You need to buy a new drive and take it apart to get a new head assembly.

There are no tricks to get a drive working for a small amount of time with a drive in your condition. You either have a working drive or you do not.

you already opened the drive, which was i would not of recommended. A bunch of people have all said the same thing. You need pro help and any attempt at doing it yourself will make things much worse to the potential or permanent loss of your data.

If you do not even want to spend 300 bucks on a set of parts to try, then the data must not be that valuable.

Either save up some money for a professional to look at it, or make peace with your lost data and move on.

Your only hope is to find someone with a time machine and go back in time to prevent the drop of the hard drive or send it to a pro with the hopes that drive may be recoverable.

Since the drive is 3TB the head area will be very thin and the chances of getting a new headstac allighed will be hard if not impossible without proper stuff. I am sure the PCB on this disk will be fine, one of the heads on the headstack would have been damaged and some media damage too.

The first thing you will need is a clean room, a second drive of the exact same type, date, model, and so on.

Can you post some images of the inside so we know what we're dealing with.

ShaneWard I really understand the fact the I most certanly need a clean room (which I don't have so either I "improvise" somehow or open it on normal air conditions although I'm perfactly aware it is not recomended).

about the inside I just lifted the cover a little to see whether the headstack wsa stuck or not.

I ended up by buying another hdd same model same month of manufacture sane disk drive, drive rev, P/N, CHS, number of sectors, basically an exact same drive appart from the S/N (that's why it costed so much).

I received it today and haven't yet tested (to see if it is recognised etc, although I bought it as 100% fully working).

Now can you give me some "lights"/help in this procedure?? Of course I know I have to unscrew a take appart the top cover, take the pcb appart, remove the entire headstack (wich I can't remember if it has a park area outside the disk sourface or if it parks on the begining of it), replace with the new one, assmble everything again and then what? just plug it in (despite the possible and probable media damage on some sectors)??

Also I wanted to know if even though it is not recomended, could I use the headstack to take data from the old drive and then reassemble it back to the donor drive and use it normally (of course not to store sensitive data, but instead to store data that even if lost would do me any harm)??

looking forward for your advices. For now I will just plug it in my desktop pc and throw some data on it to check wheter it is fully operational.

Also I have here 2 Quantum fireball ICT 10,2 GB IDE dead drives wich I was saving to practice a little.

Should I attempt to swap headstack between them first, to get a feeling of what I am doing? They are dead anyhow so wouldn't do no har to give it a try, right?

Do you think it's so simple to remove and replace a head stack without experience, proper tools and a clean room? You will kill heads 100%.



Absolutely NO. After a double head swap, assuming you are able to do it, a HDD is not reliable to store data.

I'm sorry to say you wasted your money buying that donor.

http://www.hddsurgery.com/tools/categories/1

See the Manuals, Animations, and Video Guides at the bottom of the page, or search for Scott Moulton's video guides on Youtube.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

adijay, Hi
It seems I have the same problem with the same hard drive. So what have you done with the hard drive? did you manage to recover the data?

read the answers given by "pcimage", "deftrue" and others and you'll know the answer
take in consideration that "adijay" haven't visit here more than 4 month