External WD Hard Disk Drive R.I.P?

peanutismint

peanutismint

peanutismint

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5 Sep 2003
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Cardiff Geordie
I just dropped my mate's external 500GB Western Digital Elements Hard Disk Drive. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVER ME TIMBERS!

It only fell about 10 inches, but it was enough to stop the transfer of data (between it and my Macbook) and now won't load up.

When I connect power, it makes a funny sound, as if it's trying to sing... OS X says it's unrecognised and offers to initialise it....we all know what 'initialise' means..... and Windows can't even see it. OS X actually sees it as a 2TB drive. I wish a simple drop DID turn it into a 2TB drive....

Unfortunately, it had a lot of important(ish) data on there, so I could really do with getting it back. If the strange noise is the head moving around then I reckon it safe to say that it's that which has broken. Anybody know anything about self-repair of one of these things? Coz I just know that if I take it to a data recovery place they're gonna fleece me for something I'm reasonably confident I could do myself.

Looks like it needs a T9 torx to crack it open, then just replace the head with a new one, if that is in fact the problem. But where might one go to buy a replacement head? And does it have to be the EXACT same model number etc to work? I've had a dead SATA HDD before, and it turned out to be the PCB, so I just swapped that over with a working one of EXACTLY the same model and it worked. Any ideas anyone? I'm bricking it here!!!
 
Okay, okay. Although in my defense, it fell off the desk due to its stupid rounded edges... :-D

Right, so I'm gonna need to spend out on a 500GB drive to rescue this? A 500GB drive which will then also be rendered useless... I know PCBs usually have to come from the exact same model and F/W version, but how about heads? (if that is found to be the problem) Exact same model, or just one that 'fits'? Because I happen to have a 180GB Seagate Barracuda which randomly 'stopped working' one day (no dropsies, scout's honour...), and that seems like its problem is just the PCB.....

So if I could take the head from that, that'd save me a LOT of money, and also the knowledge that I just destroyed a perfectly good 500GB drive, something I could do with MYSELF right now....
 
basmic said:
Do you know what's even involved in removing the heads?

It's not some "oh unscrew this, yank the heads out, shove these in" job.
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Yeah I do know what's involved thanks, I've read up on the subject quite a lot in the last 24 hours! Dangerous? Yes. Impossible? No way. Hey, somebody's gotta be able to do it successfully, what's to say I can't?
 
basmic said:
You obviously know NOTHING about harddrives.

Do you think Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, all use the same heads? Somehow, I think not!

You obviously think this is just a simple swap trick you can do in your bedroom.
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Dude would you listen to yourself? It's hardly helpful.

Firstly, I could be smart. I could be Stephen Hawking but not wheelchair-ridden smart, with the technical ability of a Chinese rice-writer on diazepam.

Secondly, my bedroom. I sleep in a hyperbaric chamber, free of all dirt and dust. Well of course I freaking don't, but you don't know me from Adam, so why the hostility?! :D

"Mate, this is an EXTREMELY difficult job, and if you were to pull it off, it'd be a technological miracle. However, if you'd like to have a go, I've found these helpful videos on YouTube. Have a go, best of luck. I'm with you. I believe in you. I love you man..."
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Okay well I kind of tailed off toward the end, but that's the kind of response I would have hoped for from what I've always known as a helpful and friendly and not at all elitist techno-nazi messageboard.


I'm sorry everybody, totally off on a tangent here, but mean people get me all riled up! :) Right well, thanks for the helpful comments all, I think I'll take how difficult it is into consideration and maybe get a 'professional' to look at it...Basmic, are you busy today?! :D
 
balls said:
My seagate 7200.10 dropped 2m, onto a hardwood floor... still working in raid0 now.. thats shock tollerance ;p
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Hahah I'll say! :D Wish I had your luck mate! I wouldn't feel quite so bad about it, except for the fact that it's not my HDD, so I feel an obligation to put things right.

Morthoseth said:
They were just trying to help mate, thats one great thing about these forums, everyone has past experiences in different things, basmic simply wrote like that because of the 'gung-ho' attitude you started off with in the thread.

Perhaps it wouldnt save you money going to a professional, but it would save you the hassle of both them saying i told you so, and save yourself the hassle of losing all of your data and having to buy a new drive anyway

:)
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Yeah, I know, I'm sorry I came off as a bit gung-ho, I just didn't really want to face up to the fact that a momentary lapse in concentration had probably cost me about £2-300, money which I don't have. But hey, maybe that's what credit cards are for?! :)
 
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paradigm said:
£200-300 is cheap for data recovery, last HDD we sent off from here at work was more like £1000
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Yeah, but that's just it, some places charge what I like to call 'corporate' prices, and fair play, they probably do it very professionally, but there are places that do it just as well but charge 'sensible' prices, like home data recovery specialists. I guess it's coz they know that no home user in their right mind values their data at over about £300. A guy I've used before even offered to knock some money off if he could keep any good bits of my music collection he found! Sounds dodgy, but he did a really great job replacing a PCB and the drive is good as new! :D
 
p.s. for people who have been following this thread, I just happened to have stumbled across a related blog post in one of my syndicated sites, 'Vintage Computing And Gaming':

How Not to Dismantle a Hard Drive

shattered_disk_small.jpg


What ever happened to good ‘ole fashioned aluminum discs? Thanks to a particularly rash and forceful extrication technique, I managed to spray bits of shattered, data-covered glass over half of my garage. Luckily, the pieces weren’t very sharp, as manufacturers apparently mix in some ceramic for good measure....

Read the full story


Yeah, looks like I won't be attempting this in my hyperbaric chamber after all.... :D
 
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