Western digital HDD WD10EZRX faillure/ swapping disc's platter

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Noosky

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May 30, 2014
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Hi everyone,

My Western digital HDD WD10EZRX failed recently (its only 14 month old). I used it for storage only, not OS installed. And as you can guess, it has 1 To full of photos, movies and stuff...

The disk failure suddenly happened one day after starting the computer when I got a message (DOS) saying windows needed to check the HDD. It finished the check (took a few seconds for a full 1To disc) but then screen froze. Since then, after bypassing the check, the drive was never recognized by the windows 7 (or by any other computers using SATA to USB cable), and disc management and recovery software crashes constantly when trying to look for it. The disc spins fine though, no strange noise but my home computer on which the drive was set-up slows down terribly and weirdly, prevents internet access when the disc is plugged in, and windows can't shut down unless I disconnect the drive.

So would anyone had any idea what happened there? Any way to get the data back? I have read a lot about this. I thought about swapping the board, but apparently, I have read a few threads in this forum saying the bios won't match even though the discs are the same. So unless you guys advise really against it, I am thinking to swap the platers from the old HDD to a new one that I just bought via Amazon.

I have got access to a cleanroom class 1000, so that's why I am thinking about do it. I should have the right tools too, only worried about the removing the disc (I think it is only one plater, so that's cool) and not damaging the head.

Anyone has any experience with this? If I go for it, should I be worried about something in particular apart from being extremely careful?

I have a few questions:
- When the disk is not powered, the springy head will rest on the side in such a way I don't have to worry about placing back the head on the disc manually spreading the head?. Because that I don't have a proper tool apart from tweezers.
- Should I format first the new HDD? Will it not create a conflict (with disc bios or something else) if the unformatted brand new disk find itself with a full To of data (or the other way around if I format the disc)?

Cheers

Yves
 
Solution
Someone Somewhere
The data specifying what is what is where on the HDD is stored on a chip on the PCB. This is what you need to swap if you change boards. The platters and the memory chip need to match.

Swapping the platter(s) won't work unless you also change the board/chip. There's nothing special about the motor, heads, or chassis.

You're better off sending it to a data recovery firm.
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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The data specifying what is what is where on the HDD is stored on a chip on the PCB. This is what you need to swap if you change boards. The platters and the memory chip need to match.

Swapping the platter(s) won't work unless you also change the board/chip. There's nothing special about the motor, heads, or chassis.

You're better off sending it to a data recovery firm.
 
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Saberus

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Aug 23, 2013
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Agreed, platters and board need to transfer together. If you can hear the drive spinning up and there's no clicking/grinding, then the platter is likely fine and the board is toast. If it refuses to spin up at all, the motor could be stuck or the board's toast.

A data recover firm should have relatively little difficulty recovering the data, but they charge pretty steep rates. You can call around for quotes, but don't be surprised if you're looking at a few thousand just to get your pictures and movies.

You might be better off calling it a loss and contacting WD for a warranty replacement.
 
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Noosky

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May 30, 2014
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Hi!

Thanks for your answers!! Yes the discs spins and no clicking, so yes I would think the disc is fine and that the problem comes from the board. Recovering companies charge about £400 for 1To HDD... not an option.

Would a company such as this one (www.onepcbsolution.com) that is specialised in swapping memory chip from one board to the other would be able to swap firmware and all the data needed to an other memory chip and a new board? Well I guess I'll find out by contacting them :).

Thank you very much for your help!

 
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Noosky

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May 30, 2014
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Whaaow, I was able to access the drive today for a wee while before the access was denied.

I decided to have a last go using WD data lifeguard diagnostic. In parallel, the HDD logical drive (E:\)appeared in "my computer". This has happened before, but I could never access anything: explorer crashes all the time when I click onto the drive.

So this time I decided to run data lifeguard and open E:\ (despite explorer showing "Not responding" and let it all the time it needed...
Well it took three hours for lifeguard to find the drive. The HDD is shown as "Not available", but can read the correctly the Total space and space available. At the same time, a window popped up which showed the contain of my HDD. I could briefly navigate in the HDD (everything was slow) before the access was denied. Not sure if this was due to the fact that I started to run a quick test with lifeguard... But anyway, of course (otherwise it would be too easy) I have had no time to try to copy anything before I lost access.

I have relaunched again lifeguard 2 Hours ago, but still nothing...

I have read in this thread (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/extremely-slow-hard-drive-reads/2e3e78b8-3f23-4dce-ae48-c8be3cdcb00b) that this guy had a firmware issue that forced the drive to go into self diagnostic mode and ran his computer slow. That's kind of what has happened on my home computer when the discs was plugged with SATA. And that would make sense now with the speed at which I could access the drive today with SATA to USB cable ( I probably have to slowest HDD ever :)).

I'll keep this thread up to date...
 
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Noosky

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May 30, 2014
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Alright, I have access to the drive now. Was asked to delete the "recycling bin" as it was corrupted (Guess that's because I am opening the HDD from a different computer than the one (home) it was installed on). So now I can access to the files and copy them, but with a speed varying between 100 to 300kb/s. At best I can copy my disc in about 24 days :):).

I can't figure out what has happened though. If any one knows how to get the speed back up to its usual 40-80M/s, that's great but even if it stays like this, I won't complain: it will still save me £400.

Once I copied everything I need, I'll format the drive and see if that fixes it.
 
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