Glad to find this resource. I have a SATA 3.5 Seagate 3.5" 2TB st000dl003 p/n:9VT166-570 HD that has head damage (see pic).



As far as I see, the platters look OK. The data it contains isn't vital and I believe I have most of it backed up so I'm not willing to spend the kind of $ most places are asking for professional data recovery and want to try to repair the drive myself. The procedure itself, once a donor is available, looks straightforward. The gotcha seems to be the "ramp" tool for locking and protecting the donor heads during the transfer. The seem to cost almost what recovery service would be (I get it, B2B vendors protecting their customer's business....). I've seen a couple of Chinese-made ramps on ebay but so far haven't found anything for my particular 6-hear/3 platter drive. I have 2 specific questions:

1) Is any one aware of an inexpensive ramp or a DIY procedure for safely removing and reinstalling donor heads for this drive?

2) I've seem a few potential donor st000dl003 drives for sale on ebay but with slightly different part numbers. Do I need to get the exact same part number?

Any DIY advice is welcome.

Hi

I have bad news for you. It's not going to work.
A) you shouldn't have opened the drive in an uncontrolled environment. Now it's contaminated and needs to be cleaned.
B) judging by their looks the heads have caused media damage and the platters are FUBAR. Or, you're very very very luvky and their deformation doesn't allow them to get off the ramp
C) these drives are known to have media damage for no apparent reason anyway
D) in the extremely unlikely event that you manage to do everything right and you're lucky and there is no media damage, it's not going to work like plug n play. You need professioal hardware to image the drive, let alone yo work with firmware.
E) finding proper donor is not as easy as you think

I'm sorry but you're wasting time and money

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I have to agree with all of the above I'm afraid.

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PC Image Data Recovery
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Thanks for your replies.

I'd be interested to hear opinions from anyone who isn't affiliated with a data recovery business.

That's like seeking medical advice from the plumber instead of a medical practitioner.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Not quite sure I understand the logic of coming to this forum for (presumably professional) advice and then choosing to ignore the advice because you don't like the answer, and then asking for advice from amateurs (which is what I guess all posters not affiliated with either their own DR business or someone else's would be).

Of course it's your data, so your choice. So please feel free to follow whichever path you choose to go down.

I wish you the best of luck whichever path you choose

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You are in the wrong forum then, you better go here:
http://www.horseforum.com/

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Digitalsupport Data Recovery
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Also this one is full of great resources

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/forum

Here is the non-professional advice you can expect.

1. Put it in the freezer over night (be sure to have it in a zip lock bag with rice)
2. Run SpinRite
3. Run Recuva or EaseUS data recovery programs
4. Watch videos on YouTube on how to make your own clean room chamber out of a cereal box and plastic wrap

In all seriousness, this group generally gives advice on DIY methods when they are an option. In your case, there really are no reasonable DIY options unless you plan to invest a several grand in equipment to avoid paying for a recovery at a fraction of the cost.

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Luke
Recovery Force Donor Inventory: 5,000+ Fully Cataloged HDDs & Growing

As Spildit, I´m also not affiliated to a data recovery business, and I do not consider myself as an amateur also.

So my considerations :

As drive was opened in normal air, the platters now have contamination with dust on them. This would introduce a lot of errors even in a good disk.
From the picture, it is very probable the surface is damaged by those bad heads. So, data lost, and the damage would probably damage the new heads you put in, so a lot of head exchanging would be necessary.

if you don't like what you've got so far, then I'll give you what YOU want to hear

go for it
put in money and time
replace the heads

Oh, and don't forget to let us know the results
I'm sure it will be an 100% recovery

@garypr, I'm not involved in data recovery, and I also believe you would be very unlikely to succeed. Even if you are successful with the mechanical side of the job, you would then have to deal with the question of compatibility.

Firstly, Seagate may use several different preamps in the same model. Some say that this is an important consideration. More importantly, each drive is calibrated at the factory, and these tuning parameters ("adaptives") are stored in flash memory on the PCB. DR shops will usually (always?) transfer the head adaptives from donor to patient to improve the chances of a good recovery.

Head Replacement Tips for Seagate Disks:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?t=2261&p=15120#p15120

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

You need donor with YD on second and third position in serial number. Part number is not important. You can use 3 small things like sticks or anything else wide enough to put it between heads and to be able to put heads on ramp. be careful - heads on this model like to stuck together. So it is better to put small things between heads on donor - remove donor heads from donor drive and put heads to you drive and then remove small things from heads. If heads will stuck together - most likely you will damage them when you will try to unstuck them.

You've received a lot of good advice from pros here. Northward is right . . . head damage like this almost always results in media damage and contamination. And Seagates tend to crash hard under those circumstances.

I can tell you with 100% confidence of something that WON"T work. And that's willful ignorance.

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