HDD Transplant!

[Nanobot]

I know sometimes its possible to change like-for-like hdd circuit boards to recover data from an otherwise faulty hdd, but just curious if anyone has ever tried to transplant and change the heads or platters from a like-for-like model?

I've got an old Hitachi Deskstar that has slowly deteriorated from working fine one minute to a point when, last night, it started failing and clicking.
It only contained really old snapshot backup data that has been superceded by updated files etc, so had no other option but to open it and noticed that a tiny piece from one of the heads had fallen off...

I'm not really missing the data, but just wondered if anyone has gone as far as to transplant heads or platters, or merely only circuit boards?

 

[Broken Hope]

Unless you have a clean room I can't see it being possible considering even a single spec of dust would destroy the hard drive when in use.

 

[Aod]

it is theoretically possible, with the aformentioned clean room and some specialised tools.

generally the only places where it could be done are specialised data recovery places or computer forensics labs.

if you've already opened it in a normal environment though... it's unlikely to be viable.

 

[Nanobot]

I did open it and from what I noticed, the speed that it rotates does remove any specks of dust. I tried something similar many years ago when, after dropping an iomega portable drive, the arm of the heads was stuck. I managed to open that drive to nudge the heads from where it was jammed/parked and it worked - enabling me to backup data off it.
The heads/arms seem complicated to remove, but the platters appear to be connected to spindle by torx screws, so was thinking I could (out of sheer curiosity and not the need) buy an identical drive and move the platters over.
The only unknown here is (apart from dust!) is whether the two platters are finely synchronised or not. Perhaps the platters are fixed as a pair and removed as a set.
Will know more when I find a used / identical drive! Got nothing to lose...