Hello everyone,

I am new to the forum and I hope this could be my starting point in getting the data recovered from one of my Hard drives and why not, also the start of a new hobby.

Let's start by tackling one issue at a time.

My patient is a Western Digital WD10JMVW-11AJGS3 (Aug 2014 / Malaysia).

Problem started after dropping the drive on the floor while powered off.

I have built a sort of DIY enclosure with a fan and filter to try to achieve some sort of cleanness while I opened the drive (I know, many of you might be already shaking your heads for this!).

I started by removing the top cover, at first I noticed the actuator arm was blocked right onto the disk platters. Powering on the device did nothing most probably due to the resistance of the heads on the platter?? (I think).. So I proceeded by rotating delicately the spindle anti-clockwise and by pulling gently the arm off the platters. It made a little squeeky noise but didn't seem too bad. Once the arm was again in parking area I decided to power the HDD again. The platters spinned and went to full speed and the actuator moved onto the platters. The heads positioned themselves about 0.5mm from the external diameter of the platters and made a scratching noise. A few seconds later the hard disk removed the heads and spinned down to a stop. I repeated this test a couple of times and it was the same. I then tried to push the heads onto another section of the platter and noticed no scratching noise was happening outside that ring. Even when forcing the heads back to the same area where the scratching was occurring, I could not hear nothing wrong. Unfortunately after 4 to 5 tries the actuator arm stopped moving completely and after that event I decided to close again the HDD in the hope to receive more professional help. For some reason I am guessing that if I were supposed to power the drive now, maybe the actuator arm will move again but I did not test that.

Based on the above symptoms, does anyone have an idea of what is the problem? Is it an issue with the actuator arm (heads)? Do you suggest I should try to purchase a new Hard disk to take a donor head from it?

Also another question I have: i noticed the PCB on this drive is very special. It has been manufactured specifically to have a Micro USB 3.0 socket instead of a SATA socket. Is there any chance that I could replace this PCB with another compatible version with SATA socket to simplify the recovery of the data or should I just stick to this USB 3.0?

Thanks for all the people who have the patience to read through all of this!

You just ruined the case. After all the wrong attempts, you have come to ask. It would be wise to ask b4 doing anything.

Chance is very slim to none - my opinion.

_________________
__________
There is no substitute for education and experience
THANK YOU
SHAHI
shahi.mahbub@gmail.com

#mstation, I have to admire your post. It looks like you have read about head swaps and are aware of the consequences of DIY work. We probably are all shaking our heads, but you know that

More than likely the heads were damaged in the fall, or due to the work you did afterwards. I am guessing your data is not important as you wouldn't have tried the DIY option. So, if you want to continue with the recovery you need a new set of read write heads from a matching drive. You can find how to match the drive on http://www.donordrives.com. You will probably find a donor on eBay. If you do we can give you some pointers on how to try to fit the heads and image the drive, however your chances of success are pretty much 0%..... but you never know.

If your data is important can I suggest you speak to a local professional DR company.

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

Firstly I would like to thank both of you for the comments!

The data on the drive was important but luckily I had a copy of 90% of it. As for the remaining 10% of the data I am not completely sure what was it hence why I would like to get the drive running again for just a few minutes to read the file tree.

#shahij
why did you say that I have ruined the case? case condition looks very good and I did not bend anything to remove the cover. I knew about the hidden screws under the label. If it is for the impurities that might have fell on the platters I can agree with you on that.

#ddrecovery
thanks for the useful website! I noticed that the prices are slightly over my expectations. I think I can find a compatible drive also on other online stores with better pricing but I need to clarify some questions I have.
1) what are the most important things I should be looking for. I understand the complete model name "WD10JMVW-11AJGS3" is not enough to confirm compatibility.
2) Does DCM have to match? I found one drive but DCM doesn't match.. all the rest seems ok.
3) Does PCB have to match? (comes question 4)
4) Is it convenient to look for a compatible donor drive with a SATA PCB in this case? current PCB is for Micro USB 3.0 and I do not know if it is that easy to find a cheap fully identical drive to this.

Patient:
WD10JMVW
DCX: XA37J1BGT
DCM: SBKTJBB
DATE: 26 AUG 2014
MDL: WD10JMVW-11AJGS3
PCB Sticker: 771961-101 AF
PCB Revision: 2060-771961-001 REV A

Donor:
http://www.donordrives.com/wd10jmvw-11a ... drive.html

Please also note that I do not have any specific tools like the PC3K so in this case is there any application or suggestion you could give me for the data recovery? I doubt it hardly it will boot and read directly on Windows after the heads replacement, is that correct?

Thanks again to all

No, if you do a head swap, 97% sure the drive's data volume will not come up. And if it does, it will choke within minutes/seconds while trying to read/image from it.

Then converting to SATA PCB won't help you much because the data is encrypted at hardware level. It will help with drive stability and so on, however lacking advanced tools, not much progress can be made.

There is no real DIY cost effective solution due to damage and cost of accessories to have a decent shot at recovering it.

But you can try and waste at least $100-$300 in satisfying your soul that you tried and realize whether a miracle could take place.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Everything you do , it will be a waste of money and time.

I do not think you will agree , but ...

I may be wrong, but I have not seen any post in this forum a successful case of change of heads DIY .

if he can retrieve the data , please publish it here .

good luck

I think he meant 'case' referring to you as a client, not the hard drive case.


You have a massive job ahead of you and as you have 90% of the data its really not worth it for you.

1. The drive has a USB PCB which makes imaging the drive difficult.
2. If you change to a SATA board you have the encryption to deal with.
3. You physically moved the heads on the platter surface which WILL have damage them and possibly the platter surface (you may not see it).
4. Changing heads takes experience (lots of it) and special tools, you don't have either.
5. Finding a donor also required knowing the micro jog parameters which you don't know.

Save your money and don't buy the donor..

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

Points to be noted:
1. Dropped HDD
Resulted hsa stuck to platter
Resulted damage hsa
2. The hsa was unstucked and powered on
Resulted scratch (I believe)
Invisible... This is the major issue
3. Dissassembld in Non -standard environment - resulted contamination (depends on the time and actual environment) - not sure about your environment
It's very difficult now even for the professionals with all the know how, high end technologies...
If you still want to try ... Follow previous replies..

_________________
__________
There is no substitute for education and experience
THANK YOU
SHAHI
shahi.mahbub@gmail.com

I would say 97% you will not get any data from drive. So don't spend time and money.
1. donor drive
2. exchange heads properly
3. connect sata to board
4. get drive initialized
5. solve slow responding problem
6. image drive with errors
7. unencrypt data
And totally forget about data if surfaces has damages which is often on external drives.
I would say too much for first time.

u r wrong
http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33528

_________________
Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.

Well if that's the only one, then a 99.9% failure rate is what we rate looking at

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

This may help some to success.

Samsung and 2.5 usb wd 1tb are not comparable.