Hi,

A company is trying to recover data from my existing hard drive (Mac Notebook laptop). I have been told, they (or I), need to find a "Donor" hard drive(more than likely used), which is an EXACT match to the following criteria. Once found this company will remove the heads from the donor and installed into the original drive, with hopes the data can be extracted.

I am not a computer "guru" so I don't know if the above can done accomplished. Can it?

Seagate momentus 5400.3,
SN: 5RM0BW9F
120GB,
FW: 3.CAE,
Model: ST9120822AS,
Site: WU,
Date: 08031

Cheers!
Greg

Good luck on this one Greg, this is a particuarly nasty drive to work on.

We have been seeing many of these Chinese 3.CAE versions of this model, and so far all have been non-recoverable due to platter damage.

IMHO these are 7.01 drives re-labelled. (google "Seagate 7.01") for more info.

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

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

IMHO... what does this mean?

Cheers!

Greg

In My Humble Opinion:) by the way if im not wrong that version has tendence to head crash on the middle of platters like SA zone

Yes Alberto, this does appear to be the case

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

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

Similar experiences here.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

I had quiet few of those with same problem, but could recover one of them.

As for you Greg, get some other company to atempt a recovery for you. (Just my advice)

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www.datarecoveryne.com

What DR pro makes a client provide a donor???

Like if you go to the hospital, you have to bring along your own blood supply??

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

lol. I agree, I dont ever recall asking customers to supply their own parts. Having the right contacts and the ability to source donors is a requirement for any DR company in my opinion.

Maybe you should request your media back and send it to someone whi has more experience and more chance your data will be rescued.

I am assuming that cost was an issue when selecting a DR company......

Out of 12 cases against 7.01 and 3.CAE i only managed to score 3 positive results (well, not 100% data recovered, but it's better than the other 9)

I will surely think twice to accept any of these models sent in to my workshop. I only got 6 donors left (4 for 7.01 and 2 for 3.CAE), and I'm assuming, chances against these models is < 50% success.

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My Forum

What really is frustrating about them is that they usually kill the donor heads. Wouldn't be so bad if you didn't get a recovery but at least the donor heads survived.

Yes. correct. And it's already hard to find "healthy" donors for these models. Almost all of them are already damaged.

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My Forum

anybody tried to use 7.01`s heads to put to 3.xxx chinese ones?

I too am looking for a Seagate Momentus ST9120822as 3.cae wu as adonor drive.

Lucky for me on this one there is no platter damage. Anyone with a donor I'd be super grateful for contact!

best

Rowland rowland@seefood.tv