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!!UPDATE!! ***Success!! Success!!!***Calling ALL SUPER GEEKS! Need help in a data recovery project!

J

JackBurton

Lifer
If you have read my other thread, I've lost 2 X 160GB drives. What I'm thinking about doing is buying an identical 160GB drive and swapping out the platters. Is this even possible? I think the circuitry is fried on the old drives so I need a new drive with all working parts.

Any help would be appreciated GREATLY!


************UPDATE****************

Oh yeah, I am the second coming! I resurrected the dead! I swapped out circuit boards (between the two drives that died) and the drive that I thought I fried, I was able to bring back to life!!! HELL YEAH! I don't need no stinkin' data recovery company! 🙂

Sorry for all the excitement, but I just had ALOT of data on that drive that I wanted saved! The other drive might be harder to retrieve the data off but at least I got my main one back! Praise the ToothFairy! I knew she would give me the strength to recover my data. And of course if I wasn't able to recover my data, I'd just us the excuse "she works in mysterious ways." 😉

Thanks everyone, and I hope you'll have as good a night as I will. I had a ROUGH time sleeping yesterday, but tonight I'll sleep like a baby. 🙂
 
Just swap the controller boards on the drives (if that's what you think the problem is) don't open the drives and try to work with the platters you'll seriously Fsck them up.

Thorin
 
Well you could in theory swap out the platters from the dead drive to the new but you will need a dust free enviroment.

But what you could do is if all that is the circuty is bad, you could replace the circut board from the new to the old ones that are dead, but they have to be matched models, or else you will be probably in a worse situation
 
What happens is that the drive won't even spin up. It is just completely dead. I wanted to swap the platters out because I don't know what the hell is wrong with the drives. What I was plannning on doing was making my own little clean room. It would be an enclosed fish tank, a hepa filter and some gloves. I'll practice on an old drive before I go for the real deal. Does that sound like a plan or just some crazy talk? :disgust:
 
Originally posted by: JackBurton
What happens is that the drive won't even spin up. It is just completely dead. I wanted to swap the platters out because I don't know what the hell is wrong with the drives. What I was plannning on doing was making my own little clean room. It would be an enclosed fish tank, a hepa filter and some gloves. I'll practice on an old drive before I go for the real deal. Does that sound like a plan or just some crazy talk? :disgust:
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Interesting idea but I would definately try swapping the controller boards first, since there are alot less things that can go wrong trying that then swapping platters.

Have you tried the freezer trick?

Thorin
 
Originally posted by: thorin
Originally posted by: JackBurton
What happens is that the drive won't even spin up. It is just completely dead. I wanted to swap the platters out because I don't know what the hell is wrong with the drives. What I was plannning on doing was making my own little clean room. It would be an enclosed fish tank, a hepa filter and some gloves. I'll practice on an old drive before I go for the real deal. Does that sound like a plan or just some crazy talk? :disgust:
Click to expand...
Interesting idea but I would definately try swapping the controller boards first, since there are alot less things that can go wrong trying that then swapping platters.

Have you tried the freezer trick?

Thorin
Click to expand...
Ok, I'll go for the controller board first. Sounds like the logical thing to do. Freezer trick? Yeah, that is what got me here. :| Freezer trick gone bad.
 
Wow, that is very daring to try swapping out the platters or control boards. If you are lucky it will work but you could just as easily screw both drives up.
 
Definitely try changing the circuit boards first as that may save you a lot of time and trouble.

BUT...

if you do try changing out the platters keep us posted on how it turns out. I think you might have a slim chance with the way you are planning. One question, tho. Does anyone know if there is any type of device to measure the air quality content of your clean room?

You just might be able to patent this idea if it works! 🙂

Rick
 
IF the data is valuable please consider the services of a professional data recovery house. Messing with the innards of a disk is futile at best. A clean environment is only the beginning. Without the proper instruments to remove the heads correctly, they will be destroyed. Most people that attempt this fail miserably and make it difficult to impossible for even a pro to recover! Even if they can, the cost will be astronomical. Most botched up home recovery efforts end up like this one...

Cheers!
 
The data on the drive isn't "life or death" but I would like to have it back. Let's put it this way, it ain't worth $1000+ to recover it. 😉

If my project is successful, I will crown myself king of all geeks. 🙂
 
someone here built a fish tank dust free cage before.. he had the two rubber gloves and etc,etc to fix his hdd. If it's super important to you and you want to try it on your own, you can try. get a fish tank, and some gloves, get a hepa filter and try to filter out the area some how and try a plate swap.
 
Originally posted by: JackBurton
The data on the drive isn't "life or death" but I would like to have it back. Let's put it this way, it ain't worth $1000+ to recover it. 😉 If my project is successful, I will crown myself king of all geeks. 🙂
Click to expand...

If it works, I ll second that!
 
Originally posted by: selene
someone here built a fish tank dust free cage before.. he had the two rubber gloves and etc,etc to fix his hdd. If it's super important to you and you want to try it on your own, you can try. get a fish tank, and some gloves, get a hepa filter and try to filter out the area some how and try a plate swap.
Click to expand...
Yep, I got the idea from someone here. I can't remember who it was though. But if I remember correctly, he was doing a head replacement on an older drive. I think I'll be the first one here to do something like this with a newer high capacity drive. This should be interesting. I'll see if I can get a digicam and takes some pics of the progress.
 
Good luck getting the platters into the new drive without scratching, wrecking, or bending the drive head and arms.

Take an old drive apart you will see how hard it is
 
Originally posted by: shuttleteam
IF the data is valuable please consider the services of a professional data recovery house. Messing with the innards of a disk is futile at best. A clean environment is only the beginning. Without the proper instruments to remove the heads correctly, they will be destroyed. Most people that attempt this fail miserably and make it difficult to impossible for even a pro to recover! Even if they can, the cost will be astronomical. Most botched up home recovery efforts end up like this one...

Cheers!
Click to expand...
On top of all this, if you break the seal on the drives you are voiding your warranty. You will not be able to RMA them and will have pissed away your money in addition to having lost your data.
 
Originally posted by: Megatomic
Originally posted by: shuttleteam
IF the data is valuable please consider the services of a professional data recovery house. Messing with the innards of a disk is futile at best. A clean environment is only the beginning. Without the proper instruments to remove the heads correctly, they will be destroyed. Most people that attempt this fail miserably and make it difficult to impossible for even a pro to recover! Even if they can, the cost will be astronomical. Most botched up home recovery efforts end up like this one...

Cheers!
Click to expand...
On top of all this, if you break the seal on the drives you are voiding your warranty. You will not be able to RMA them and will have pissed away your money in addition to having lost your data.
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I have no intention of RMAing these drives. When I write to a hard drive, I don't send it back. 😉
 
Originally posted by: JackBurton
Originally posted by: Megatomic
Originally posted by: JackBurton

I have no intention of RMAing these drives. When I write to a hard drive, I don't send it back. 😉
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*fap*?? 😀
Click to expand...
What the heck is that? I can't even post that word to reply back.
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😱 *f a p* is slang for, umm, spanking it... I was making a joke about potential pr0n on your disk preventing you from RMAing the drives. Sorry, I'm tired (worked all night last night). I should go to bed now.
 
I remember seeing a link on hardocp a few months ago for somebody who did this. I think it was a 75GXP?

Anyway the biggest issue outside dust was removing the head assymblies. Basically the heads that read/write the drives are ultra fragile. And if you were to simply move them off the platter and they were to hit each other from the head on top to the head on bottom of the platter (they are basically spring loaded to stick to the drive), then you are about certain that the heads are ruined.

The guy built some rather odd looking contraption to pull the heads off the drive and hold them there.

Anyway long story short it isn't impossible but it would be quite a task to do it.
 
There have been a number of people who claim the 75GXP fiasco was partly caused by bad chips on the controller board. I remember a step-by-step where one guy went so far as to swap out the controller board and was able to make the drive work, but not in a way that could recover data. Something about the tracking position was out of whack from one board to the next and it was unable to find the data track.... or at least that's what the guy concluded.

I'd be super impressed if you can get the conroller board swapped easily, but I would bow down to you as the king of super lucky geeks if you were actually able to read the data. I think you're better off getting your new drive and just letting go of the old. Oh, a lot of these manufacturers burn through revision after revision without updating the model numbers... a 1200JB from months ago could be very different from a 1200JB today.
 
If you buy a new drive and try switching platters I have a feeling you're going to end up with 3 dead drives..

Switching the controller board is worth a shot, but platters is probably just a waste of time and money. But it would be pretty cool if that worked 🙂
 
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