can i fix the hard drive myself?

Sharks445 · Apr 21, 2014

OK so I have this hard drive that kept causing me problems. Ocassionaly windows would crash with a blue screen, and the computer would ocassionaly freeze when reading or writing data.

I have experience with hardware servicing ( power supplies, to be exact)
I went and opened up the hard drive. I took the metal cover off. All soon as I open..
All I see is a large crack on the shiny CD inside the drive.
Can this be fixed? Can I recover the data without windows crashing?

Can I fix the drive by replacing the CD?

unksol · Apr 21, 2014

Lol no. If was ruined as soon as you opened it. they are sealed for a reason. And its a platter not a CD. its solid metal and there is no way it should be cracked. Might be a scratch from a head crash. If you didn't mess with the internals and JUST opened it you MAY be able to put it back together get some data off it while its attached to another PC. That's it though. Now that its been opened outside a clean room its basically trash.

Sharks445 · Apr 21, 2014

Upon inspection, it is not a crack, rather a large scratch on it. I don't know how that got there

photonboy · Apr 21, 2014

Hi,
If the scratch is equidistant from the center it could have been made by the drive head crashing into the platter.

If not, it could simply be a manufacturing error that might not even be significant since it likely wouldn't matter after formatting but I'm no expert.

Regardless:
a) Assuming the drive is defective it is NOT fixable. Experts would just transfer the entire platter to a new drive or copy the data if possible. Also,

b) Hard Drive requires a specific TORQUE to the screws to properly re-assemble or they tend to be really loud and possibly not even work if the seal isn't completed.

You need to attempt to recover any data if possible, and forget about that drive. You've also voided your Warranty.

Also, there are no available parts to repair hard drives by consumers anyway so I'm not sure what your plan was there. You really should have just RMA's the drive if the Warranty was still valid.

hang-the-9 · Apr 21, 2014

Sharks445 :

If you did not copy your data, or try to, before opening the drive, you just dropped your chances to get anything back to some very low numbers.

If you think that shiny thing inside the drive is a "CD", you will not be able to fix anything. Buy a new hard-drive. Opening a hard-drive on your own is a very bad idea unless you are just doing it to see how things work and don't really care if you get your data out or not.

Sharks445 · Apr 21, 2014

hang-the-9 :

Sharks445 :

If you did not copy your data, or try to, before opening the drive, you just dropped your chances to get anything back to some very low numbers.

If you think that shiny thing inside the drive is a "CD", you will not be able to fix anything. Buy a new hard-drive. Opening a hard-drive on your own is a very bad idea unless you are just doing it to see how things work and don't really care if you get your data out or not.

I really don't care about the data in it. It was all software and bloatware in it anyways. I bought the drive for a cheap price as well. You get what you payed for

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