Hi All, happy new year.

I am still new and trying to learn as much as i can with data recovery, so far i have been working with software issues with drives and the next logical progress is to try a hardware fault. i have however encountered some problems and would love some advise to try and see what i amdoing wrong. I must state i have no clean room but have taken great care in ensuring my work space is completely clean and have done all internal work on a proper antistatic workbench.

the dead drive is not important as it is a practice drive i have.
the drive is Seagate 80Gb SATA 7200.9 model no ST380811AS with a firmware code of 3.AAE, it basically spins but BIOS does not detect the drive at all and neither does windows.

So i called my supplier and ordered an identical drive as above i checked the forware code on the new drive, the part no and all is identical. i decided to swap the controller board, i did so and no change the drive is still not reconigised by the BIOS.

I thought it may be an internal error as this seems the next logical step so i decided to swap the platter that contans the data from the faulty drive into the new drive.

I makred the boards, cases and so on so i can keep track of my work, i then opened both drives, removed the upper magnet so that the head would not have an end limiter, on the new drive i carefully spun the platter and moved the head head all the way of the platter while spinning the platter, parked the head safely out of the way and then removed the screws and changed the platter with the data to the new drive, doing the same on both drives, after i screws the platterinto place i then very carefully moved the head back to the platter, kept on spinning the platter by hand and then the head moved back into position on the platter, this is asingle head only so seemed quite simple.

Closed the drive, put all screws back and then plugged the drive onto the machine.

Nothing at all happens same issue the drive is not detected by the BIOS, the drive spins, no clicking noises but i am very lost as to what i may be doing wrong, this is killing me as i am trying to sort out this problem.

If any one has any pointers i would be very grateful, i am very interested in learing about head replacment and am reading as much as possiuble on these things,

Do i need to do any special aligenment? are there any special tools, utilities such as PC 3000 that are required for this sort of job ?

Sorry if this is a bit long i just wanted to provide as much info as possible.

Thank you in advance.

Hi,
Thx for the link

i have read this link several times before attempting the above that was done and am looking for a way to proceed from there to try and understand what is happening,

Any other ideas?

Thank you

I'm not an expert, but you usually dont swap the platters, becouse they must remain aligned and balanced. You can try to swap the HeadStack, but that is difficult job also. And if you dont know pc3000 or similar product, you dont have a chance...

Thx for the reply

i may be wrong but i thought that a single platter is not to dependent on alignment and alignment is only an issue with multiple platters i may be wrong,

as for the pc 3000 as i dont have one yet and am still learning i am wondering is that a tool that would or could be used for this kind of job, i understand that wuth these things there will always be a very steep learning curve and so am interested in peoples thoughts.

Thx

Hi,

a single platter can become de-centered as soon as U loosen the platter fixing screws.
the tracks' axis is not equal to the mechanical axis of the platter and its fixture, so there might be centering problems with a single platter in some drive models. I made an experiment with an AVVA40 drive (IBM) and after losening the platter fixing screws I could never get it centered again, so I suppose it is really hard in IBM drives, but as far as the slim maxtors are concerned, I only had centering problems with N40P drives, but it could be solved.
PC3k has nothing to do with Head replacement, unless its cloning capabilities are concerned.

pepe

Thx for the reply Pepe

therefore i can assume that it is possible that if it is decentered the drive will not be detected by yht BIOS.

are there any ways to repair this problem.

i guess that it is more logical to relace the head in this case then the platter and avoid these sorts of alignement issues, but my question remains in that case what happens with a jammed spindle when you have no choice but to replace the platters onto another spindle.

Thx for all the help and answers.

Ari