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HD disection

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by the gardener

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ever have to swap the platters out to another drive for recovery? ever done it succesfully?
i had a drive crash, it just goes tic,tic,tic upon booting and doesnt get assigned a drive letter, yes i tried to repair the MBR but it cant because it cant find the drive in the first place.
ill sacrifice another drive and attempt to swap the platters out before i succum to 2k$ for recovery outscourcing.
i wish i had 10,000 points to offer but im new here and only have a few, i know its a difficult question unless you work for somone who does hard drive recovery. i can offer you a copy of Ontracks EZrecovery pro 5.12 :)
works fine at a software level if the drive is operational, who knew after 6 months the drive would crap out....

9 replies

by timthetoolman

Hi,

In TechRepublic's download section you'll find a document "200 ways to revive a hard drive".

Its quite good.

I wouldn't even consider moving the platters of the drive. They're at very, very fine tolerances with the heads and you've got pretty much no chance of getting it right.

Also, you're bound to damage them with a spec or ten of dust when you do it.

You can also check out the follwing site...

http://www.dtidata.com/?AG=pauldti1

(remove spaces from above URL)

They're specialists in data recovery and some of their tools may help even if windows cant see the drive. As long as the BIOS can, I'd say you've got some chance.

Cheers,
Tim.

by thechas

I would definetly try Tims suggestion as a first, best option.

If that doesn't work, and you have good electonics soldering skills;
Since the drive isn't being recognized, you might try swapping the controller electronics from a drive of the exact same model.
Do not use a differnt drive model, as the firmware will be different, and not work with the platter and head structure.

by isys

The sound you hear is the read/write head bouncing off the spindle. Most likely the voice coil is burned out. If you try to move the spindle you are assured of destroying the drive contents. Your best bet is to sell the EZRecovery on eBay and usethe money for data recovery. And invest in a backup solution.

by jereg

I will second THECHAS's comments. I've recoverd a bad hard drive by swapping the controlle card on the back. If you can get an identical HD, it only takes 5 minutes, and worh a try. But don't bother craking the case. HD's are built in dust free clean rooms. Once the case is split, it's toast. Plus, there is no way you can align the heads by eye. Tools to do that cost big bucks. Good Luck.

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