I have a Deskstar that I sent in and just got back from a data recovery shop that told me the drive has bad heads. So I looked around on ebay and decided to get a similar working Deskstar with the same model number except it's manufactured in 2006 while my bad Deskstar was manufactured in 2005. I just got the drive today and noticed that every number on the drive matches - the p/n, model, LBA, and CHS. The different numbers are the MLC and the numbers on the sticker right below the PCB. My question is, could I swap the heads from the working 2006 drive into my bad 2005 drive despite the fact that the two numbers don't match?

if you need the data, let a pro deal with that

Alright any cheap suggestions if it's not suggested that I try?

If you have never done it before, I would not recommend it.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

+1 I agree with harddrivespecialist (and he's my local competitor ).

Hitachi drives are fairly forgiving on matching read/write heads. However if you've never done a head swap before, you are guaranteed to fail and may even make recovery impossible. How much were you quoted if you don't mind telling us? Perhaps one of us can provide a more affordable service.

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

I never got a quote from the shop I sent it to ($300 data recovery) for head replacement. If one of you guys replaced it, would the hard drive I bought work to scrap the heads off of or even to do a platter swap if I sent it along with the bad hard drive?

That $300 dollar company sends its work to platinum data recovery as a bait and switch. Heard it from many customers.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

That company does not do invasive data recoveries. The positive side to this is that you can be certain that they will not attempt to upsell you an expensive headstack replacement if the job can be done without opening the HDD.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

That is true because Platinum DR quotes the jobs they can't do.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Alright well I just need to know, will the heads from the hard drive I bought work in the hard drive that's broken?

Most likely.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

The date isn't usually too critical on Hitachi as long as the Model, Part Number, and MLC are a match. Though I do usually still try to get the one that is closest in date that's available.

Typically I charge $650 +parts for Hitachi head replacements. Which if the part you have is a good match, there wouldn't be any parts charge (assuming the heads survive imaging the whole drive). But, perhaps there's someone on here who will do it for less.

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

I just noticed that your original post mentioned that the MLC is different... so actually it may not match.

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

Thank you data-medics. I found another one that I'm getting that all those numbers plus the ones on the PCB match. Thanks again for the help,$650 is kind of expensive so I'll look around. There might be a local shop I can take it to and I'll see what they can do.

local shop ? why not go straight to the butcher ?

Haha do you have a better suggestion jermy that's cheaper?