I have a WD Palmer drive with damaged heads. I swapped the heads from a donor drive. After replacement, the drive clicks about six times, then becomes ready, but it can’t be identified and shows 0 capacity.

I inspected the platter surface — no visible scratches. I also compared the donor head pattern to the patient’s, and they are identical. When I moved the heads back to the donor drive, it worked fine, so the heads themselves are still good.

After several attempts, I managed to get the patient drive to identify correctly and display the real capacity once, but after a few seconds it started clicking again. Upon reset or refresh, it reverted to showing 0 capacity.

I also tried to upload the LDR file, but it fails.

Does anyone have an idea what the issue could be?

Patient:
Model: WD10SDRW-11A0XS1
Family: Palmer
Made in: Thailand
Date: 24 OCT 2024
PCB: 2060-800069-001

Donor:
Model: WD10SDRW-11A0XS0
Family: Palmer
Made in: Thailand
Date: 05 OCT 2020
PCB: 2060-800069-001

Block 30 in ROM and then use your loader.

Tried to Disable 30 and upload still failed. Tried to disable 14 and 30 and failed.

check donor heads if they are clean and still work in donor. i guess they are gone...

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

if heads are good, drive should still be spinning when you disable 30 in ROM. Otherwise I think pepe is right... Surface damage?

Yes heads are gone... replaced another two heads same thing happened it identified work for few seconds then killed the heads. so must be surface damage, took platter out inspected there is no ring scratch but in one spot there are two dots that can the coating has been removed so hats must be whats killing the heads.

for reference these are compatible to swap heads:

WD10SPZX-75Z10T2 2018 Malaysia
WD10SDZW-11UMGS0 2018 Thailand
WD10SDRRW-11A0XS0 2021 Thailand
WD10SDRRW-11A0XS1 2024 Thailand

Swapped these heads from one to another for testing and they worked fine.

I need to check compatibility. What is the exact firmware version (FW) shown on the label, please?

WD10SPZX-75Z10T2 2018 Malaysia FW:T2
WD10SDZW-11UMGS0 2018 Thailand FW:T2
WD10SDRRW-11A0XS0 2021 Thailand FW: is not on label
WD10SDRRW-11A0XS1 2024 Thailand FW: is not on label

Does spindle shut down? If yes then loading any loader will not help.
Can you start HDD without spindle shutdown with just one head active in ROM and 0x411 blocked?

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