Retrieve data

[Geniere]

Last week my hard drive failed, but it was giving symptoms for a while so I was well backed up. Just for kicks I took it apart. The failure was electronic, not a head crash, as the bios did not sense it. This WD 20gig drive had only 1 platter but was able to hold two platters and also had an unused pickup head. It wasn't too diffucult to take it apart and remove the platter, although some of the torx type screws are hidden under labels and thin foils. The pickup arms were in the parked position against the center spindle, and held there by a small magnet. To remove the platter while protecting it from being damaged by the heads was the most difficult part. I was only able to protect the visable upper surface but could see no marks on the bottom surface afterwards. The surface of the disk is the shiniest thing I've ever seen. Had I needed to retrieve my data, it would seem possible to do it by installing the disk in another 5400rpm 20 gig, WD drive. HD's are cheap compared to data recovery companies prices. Anybody ever try it???

 

[chipy]

nope, never tried it. But, from your description it seems interesting enough to attempt to try it, considering you have all your important data backedup.

chipy

 

[Souka]

I've done platter swaps before, some sucessful, some not.

Only time it's sucessful is an exact swap of identical HD's......same batch if possible.....

A 20gb WD drive probably is made in a number of revisions......


I've done it with laptop and desktop HD's........maybe 10 times, about 4 sucessfull.....was able to retrieve data and toss the HD.