The drive dropped.
The question here: is it worth to replace the heads? or is it a waste of money?

The drive from your customer? you wanna make for test, get data or etc?

if platters has good condition (not scrached or good SA) you can head swap.

If I'm in your shoes . and i will take the risk of donor cost . i will not go . it's almost unfair fight considering head zero is in the buttom

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Tawfeek Mokhtar
http://alsafwapc.net
Alsafwa Data Recovery Egypt

If you don't see any visible scratches on the platters, it certainly could be recoverable. Do you know how much it was run with the heads like that? Usually these will click and spin down, which can help to minimize the SA damage. But these DM's can be a pain in any event.

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

Thanks for the advice my friend.


There's no visible damage to the top side. I don't know exactly how many times the customer power it up.

Looks to me like the heads are proper mashed into the ramp, so there's a chance they didn't get out onto the platters to destroy the media.

I'd give it a shot if it was me.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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I powered it only one time (for proper diagnosis sure) the drive spin up , clicks then spin down.
The customer said that he dropped it and after that he connect it several times to try several softwares to retrieve his data.

Oh dear, that's not good

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

I will try to find a (used) donor in my stock. If I couldn't find one, I WILL NOT buy a new donor.