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Hard drive internals

C

CerealKiller2

Junior Member
Hi all

My hard drive recently ceased to function. What a bummer. It tries to start but never really gets the full spin. Even though it is still under a warranty, that does not include all the valuable data that I have on it, and it just stopped working with me not even close to the computer. at the moment of failure. Now I'm curious whether there is anything I could do to salvage the data, if anything for just a period long enough to copy it to another drive. Any point in opening the drive (that would obviously render the warranty invalid)? Buying the exact same drive and replacing the disk plates is one of the things that comes to mind, but honestly I'm pretty inexperienced in this sort of stuff.

Any help would be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
 
well

YOU cant fix it. seriously, YOU cannot. if the data is that valuable, send the HDD to a data recovery service to have it professionally done. It'll cost several hundred dollars.
 
Exactly the answer I got on a few previous occasions. Nevertheless I (foolishly perhaps) still refuse to give up hope on the possibility of fixing it on my own or with the help of someone (read: private person). I talked to a data recovery company and the cost ranges from $1500 and upwards. That, for me as a private consumer, is far too much considering that the data on the HDD, however important to me, still is just a bunch of my favorite music pluss some movies (total of 50GB). I just find it hard to give in on a relatively new HDD (IBM Deskstar 60GB) just quitting on me.

Anyway, thanks on the reply.
 
You could do it, you just need to be in a very sterile room with no dust or humidity at all (not likely).
 
There was an article on slashdot a few months back about guys adding plexiglass windows on a harddrive. A really stupid thing to do, IMHO, but they seemed to work for some time at least. Probably long enough to get your data off. Of course, all they did was take off the cover plate, mod it, and put it back on. You're talking about swapping platters ... it could be a very different story.

As you mentioned, you'll void the warrenty on your current drive, as well as the drive you intend to swap the platters into. If you don't mind blowing a few hundred bucks on an chancy endeavor, go for it. Could be interesting. Be sure to report back if you try it!
 
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