Dissasemble my hard drive...

ojmyster

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Dec 31, 2007
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Is is true that if I take the lid off my hard drive all the data will be lost.
My hard drive crashed a few weeks ago and after sending it off to a few companys claiming to be able to recover the data off the drive I found out that the heads would need replacing... This woudl cost me more than I could afford and more than the data on the drive is worth. I've got another identical hard disk with no information on it. Is it possible to just take the controller card and the heads out of the blank drive and put them into the new drive?

Thanx
 
Technically it is possible. But I <b>guarantee</b> you it won't work.

One speck of dust / moisture / ANYTHING will wreck the drive. You'd need a Scientific Clean Room to do any type of work on a harddrive like that, and even then your chances of doing that would be slim to none.

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Like Ned said you can take your harddrive apart, and you can fix it, but the chances aren't very high that you can actually do it successfully. The hard drive should be opened in a dust free room. This is why everyone says not to open hard drives.

If you do wish to attempt it, the best way to do it is, to run a really hot shower with the bathroom door closed, the humidty will help keep dust down. Many people mod there hard drives (hard drive casing windows and such), using this similar method, without damaging there hard drives.



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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
He could make his own dust-free environment in a box, like they use for premature babies.

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pat

Expert
"Is is true that if I take the lid off my hard drive all the data will be lost."

When your drive will be open, all the 0s and 1s will escape and run free... If you manage to bring them all in, then you should be ok. But remember, they are very small, so you could just crush them on the floor while chasing them. If they fall into water, 0s can be buoy for the 1s, but if there is not enough 0s then some 1s may sink and you'll loose data too.

So as you see, opening a HDD in not a safe operation.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

folken

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Possible to take it appart yes, possible to change the heads I really don't think so. Those things sit a certain distance away from the platter and I dont think any human could get it back to where it needs to be. I've had similar things happen on my drives, even where only the controller chip on the hd died. I've had no successful hard drive repairs. I've determined it is pretty much impossible to repair a hard drive. Just kiss your data goodby and get on with life, I've done it far to many times now to count. That is one major reason I recently invested in a RAID5 storage server at my house, I like my data :)

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Funny becuase it's probably true.

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