Head replacement / Swap platters?

[satos]

Hello. I have an internal hard drive WD2500bevs, the heads are destroyed so I have 2 ideas (seem logical to me) and I want your opinion.

If I remove the platters and install them to a same hard drive model is it going to read my data?
If I replace the heads with new ones is it going to work? Where I can find replacement heads?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Traildriver]

You can't. Unless U have a clean room and robotic equipment to remove and replace without tremors that using a hand would impart. The heads are so close to the platter you can't help but scratch them on the platters. Not to mention the precision reassembly and calibration required.

Only an expensive data recovery facility can do this work.

Say bye bye to your data.

And always have a backup.

 

[americanbrian]

You can always give it a try but most likely you will corrupt some of the data as above.

If you do give it a whirl let us know if you are successful....

 

[satos]

I will give it a try in the future. If I put aside the heads and just swap the platters I don't see how I am going to affect the arm..

 

[hang-the-9]

You are talking about gaps and spaces in the microns. Your hand that steady? Going to make sure no dust particles settle in the drive? If the drive is dead you can't make it any worse really so take it apart and see what happens. This is not like swapping out a car battery or putting in a new toilet paper roll.

 

[christop]

It's not going to work...

 

[satos]

Why? If you have the same model and everything and you know that your platters are ok, you swap platters with the donor and recover immediately. Do you think that if I give it to a professional is going to save my work?

 

[t53186]

How do you know the heads are destroyed (original post). A Data recovery service "May" be able to get the data off your drive. Very Expensive and a hard lesson to learn what the phrase "Back up your data" means.

 

[satos]

I know it because I destroyed them I had back up to the second partition of my drive!!

 

[shadow_city]

As soon as a tiny spec of dust settles on and your drive starts spinning (at like 90 km/h or so), that dust will scratch magnetic stuff off and that magnetic stuff will do even more damage and so on...

So unless you are working in a sealed room, it is not going to work.

 

[memadmax]

Interesting project you got going on here.
I think your best course would be to grab another HD that is as close to the one that you got, down to the pcb/firmware as you can.

Alot of people here, don't seem to have the experience to know what a hard drive can and can't survive.
I personally had a couple of WD drives run for a few weeks with the cover off, no problem.
There's even videos out there of people running hard drives with the covers off, grabbing the top most head and pulling it off the platter and let it snap back down and the hard drive runs like nothing happened.

Yep, lots of myths out there, good luck man.

 

[memadmax]

Also, make sure the replacement heads are in good shape.
Unless they are new, check the plastic surrounding the metal head part that is in the center of the plastic. You are looking for chips, small ones, and fine black powder like build up. Use a dry QTip to clean.

 

[hmunster123]

I opened my hard drive, smudged the platters with my fingers, put it back together. Works. A lot of people that answer these questions seem to be

A. Data recovery employees that want to gauge you on hard drive repair

B. Don't know the answers.

My question is this, what if I swap platters that are different sizes in MB? Same size physically of course.

 

[ssmusic]

I opened my hard drive, smudged the platters with my fingers, put it back together. Works. A lot of people that answer these questions seem to be

A. Data recovery employees that want to gauge you on hard drive repair

B. Don't know the answers.

My question is this, what if I swap platters that are different sizes in MB? Same size physically of course.

Hey hmunster123 first of all congrats not getting yourself duped by these recovery guys. I have an issue and I'm afraid the recovery police will go after me if I post my own thread
I'm not sure what's the problem with mine, however the head is stuck outside the platters. I was wondering, could I get a similar drive (not the exact same as I can't find one) and simply swap these two parts? Is there something else I should do, like also transplanting something on the board? (I read about that but don't know what's real and what's you-know-from-whom)
And finally, did the HD keep working a long time afterwards?

 

[USAFRet]

Hey hmunster123 first of all congrats not getting yourself duped by these recovery guys. I have an issue and I'm afraid the recovery police will go after me if I post my own thread
I'm not sure what's the problem with mine, however the head is stuck outside the platters. I was wondering, could I get a similar drive (not the exact same as I can't find one) and simply swap these two parts? Is there something else I should do, like also transplanting something on the board? (I read about that but don't know what's real and what's you-know-from-whom)
And finally, did the HD keep working a long time afterwards?

1. This is an ancient thread and will be closed.

2. What happened when you tried this parts swapping magic from your other thread?
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3682669/external-hdd-problem-swap-boards.html