Hate to question you, but you mean to say you have never recieved a 2.5" HDD where heads are stuck to media without a fall or siezed motor? I see these quite frequently so I have to disagree and say that they do stik by themseleves.

BlackST it took 17 posts in this thread until I actually got a reply that was useful. People trying to learn anything off this thread are going to have to syphon through all the dickhead responses until they get to yours. Thank you for your time, and I find your answer very valuable in my problem solving. I can see with my eyesight that the top head is damaged beyond repair.

So then it must be obvious I need to stick with my original plan of tracking a donor and carry out the transplant?

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
Find Cheap Donor Drives App: https://www.zeroalpha.com.au/donor-drive-app Updated February 2026

oh and sorry to answer your original question about

Because I found that the motor was seized and heads damaged, so I thought it was obvious to swap the platter. Then I had all the riff raff say that it was not needed. I had to ask the question to get somebody who actually knew what they were talking about so I could confirm my diagnostics. Which wasn't until your response

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
Find Cheap Donor Drives App: https://www.zeroalpha.com.au/donor-drive-app Updated February 2026

@hddguy : at present for the stiction there was ALWAYS an external event like shock or something like that, maybe I'll see some spontaneous stiction one of these days. It's statistics. Have seen motor seizure and consequent stiction, yes.

To the OP : your chances to get the data back are close to zero unless you have all the proper equipment and knowledge. You have to find a suitable donor and have all the tools and gear needed, and face also adaptives/alignment problems. And an error will lead to destruction of new headset too (won't have a 2nd chance). AND you have no info about the conditions of the other surfaces. What you can't see with naked eye is visible with microscope. Honestly, I have everything I need to handle the problem, but from your side is different. You and only you know the importance of your data so............

Please let us know how you get on with it. If you are going to attempt this yourself, you will need to be aware of head map differences, depending if your HDD was from a MAC or not, you can find more info about this.

And the 'dickhead' responses were posted for your own good, your question said: 'The heads were stuck to the platter and the spindal motor was not spinning up. I guess I will need to do a platter swap'. This statement shows that you have no knowledge about the problem, or how to solve it, and 9 times out of 10 DIY data recovery is a disaster. Seems that all the 'dickhead' responses were aimed at discouraging you from permanent data loss. This could be interpreted as good advice, I just hope you come back here to let us know how you get on.
Who knows, maybe someone in this forum can even suplpy you a donor....

@blaskst : I agree that many situations of stiction occur as a result of another factor, but in my experience it is not strictly limited to other factors, sometimes it is simply spontaneous.

I have to agree with HDD Guy. Many customers have stated that their media has not suffered any shock but stiction has occured.

If you are so content to DIY it and do a platter swap I recommend you take them out one at a time, use a pencil to write on the top platter, T for Top for be good, also use a ruler and write a line on the side of the platter to keep alignment. You should also clean the platter with hot soapy water to remove the old head, also use a sheep wool mit to dry the platters. To remove the heads use a nice set of pliers, there is a special technique to moving them off the platters or parking ramp, you must push down and twist, the heads will then freely move out.

Good Luck

Most, if not all drives, have an emergency parking function that executes in the event of a power failure. Maybe on old drives the capacitors holding the energy can be a bit weak? Or maybe something else is causing it to fail occasionally ..

If I can get a donor I will be more than happy to post my results and procedure. This hard disk has only one platter so I have no issue with multiple platter alignment. I'm finally getting some constructive help here after the huge flame war that went on. So if any of you shop owners have my donor please let me know.

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
Find Cheap Donor Drives App: https://www.zeroalpha.com.au/donor-drive-app Updated February 2026

I've got plenty of donors (with good motors) of drives that I removed the heads from. You can practice removing the platter with one of these.

PM me if you want one. $20.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Hi,

it is not the caps that are holding the energy, the spindle motor BEMF is used to park heads and keep them in parking position until the spindle is stopped.
so there is a problem when the spindle gets seized, as there is no BEMF and neither enough time to park the heads.


to the OP: in the first post there was no sign the spindle was stuck, U only mentioned that heads are stuck on the platter, that's why it was only you considering a platter swap, so don't blame those so called experts who doubted the need of a platter swap.
Basically they are not against you, but the only rational way of approaching the problem is to think that somebody with experience will have radically more chance for recovering your drive than you have (without any bad feeling).
The so called pros took their time to read your post and give the best advice, they did it in one short sentence because they have more important things to do than answering posts all day long.
Please take into account this.
I also belong to the group thinking it is not too probable u will succeed with this job, but who cares about my oppinion...

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

I am talking about drives with non seized spindle motors where the stiction seems to be spontaneous. Yes, I know that the actual energy source is the BEMF from the spindle motor. But there is a RC-net that is forming the complete circuit. The coils from the motor can not be "weak" so it must be something else.

Well, in most of the cases the drives have suffering for a hit. But as said, there is also cases where it seems to happen spontaneous. What may be the cause in those cases? If not component failure, firmware not able to execute the "emergency park command" fast enough on a sudden power loss in situations when drive is very busy with other things?

Maybe BlackST is right on this, that it's always an external event ..

I have managed to simulate stiction in the lab by cutting the power, applying downward pressure to the lid and dropping the hard drive but I suppose this is classed as an external event. Also it can't be a conincidence that stiction accurs more on laptop/portable hard drives than 3.5" desktop hard drives as these disks are subject to more movement, mistreatment and shock.

Thinking about it now, maybe what appears to be a spontanious/illogical failure is actually a result of one of the above.

NOTE : external events means for example a spike on power or superimposed noise or something like that that makes drive enter an unstable state or stop. Can also be a contact problem between PCB and motor / MHA or something unpredictable.
True story happened to me : I have made a distribution panel with security differential switch, magneto-termic switch and many power outlet, so when I shut down the "general" magnetotermic switch , I am sure there is NO power at all on the outlets, ALL the poles are absolutely isolated and everything is safe. One day I was shutting down one of the PCs and I was waiting for the OS to complete, with the fingers on the switch. I probably have made enough pressure (involuntarily) so some "sparking" from the switch (unstable position) happened.
Result : the PC suffered from unstable power for split seconds (it was a non-important PC without UPS) , the drive developed INSTANTLY problems because it was surely writing something.
At next startup the drive was clicking, SMART thresholds exceeded, pending sectors and so on.
Luckily it happened to me, so I fixed it later in half an hour, recovered 100% of data and then done a factory recertification of the drive so it became "like brand new". But it was me, not "average Joe".
This is what I call an external event. Most probably only the power has fallen , not enough to trigger the internal emergency shutdown (that should inhibit writing!) but enough to make the drive confused. And , again, luckily it happened to me.
Moral : drives fail. You can only hope you'll have a solution when it will happen, regardless of cause(s).