Follow along as reader [anonymous Gort] swaps the guts of two hard drives to bring one back from the land of the dead.
Someone at work had a laptop computer they never backed up. They traveled 1000 miles to give a presentation, using the laptop
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The best way to destroy a drive…
http://homepage.mac.com/barrywoods/FileSharing42.html
Hey all.
I’ve recovered a few deceased Microdrives this way- actually got some data back off two of the three Ebay drives. The trick is to get them to spin up as the failure mode on these seems to be “stiction”; for this I first froze the drive then tapped it as it tried to spin up. One drive I repaired worked for weeks before failing.
I’ve also used this trick on Magicstor drives, in fact these are more likely to be a bad control PCB which is swappable.
-A
I was interested by the comment #46 that many of the recent problems are firmware related – “clicking”. I’d like to know more about that problem… Clicking usually implies a mechnical problem to me.
Yes RAID should be the defacto standard. Still my customer wants to roll out PC that are cheap as hell. So I’ve gone back to good old 80gb drives. Which seem like about the last size group of HD that were worth a damn (reliability wise).
Is it my imagination, or is WD really making some unreliable drives lately? In the last few years, I’ve seen more these drives fail, than all of the other drives combined over my career.
I sent a drive in to a professional data recovery service. They wanted $1600 for the job. In todays economy, not even a blue chip corporation is likely to go with that program. Unless it is a (manufacturing) production machine or server. In which case it would have had a backup anyhow.
I had an old IBM 3.2GB drive about 5 years ago that had some bearing problems (it was in the back of my car as an MP3 player). I used to have to physically spin the thing in a certain direction with some verocity to get it to spin up. Once spinning, I didn’t have a problem with it. It worked for about 2 years and then I shorted out the power supply and threw the whole thing in the bin!
I was curious. I have a 80 gig WD drive,and the drive when the machine is turned on sounds like it’s smacking something. This lasts for about 1 min, and then stops like the power was killed to the drive. Would freezing help me get the data off the drive? If so. How cold should you get the drive. I have heard that the moisture or ice crystal forming can kill the drive.
I have access to Liquid Helium, which would bring the drive to -420 degreas in a flash. This should stop the formation of any ice crystals. My next worry would be that it’s too cold at that point? Any help would be great.
I was curious. I have a 80 gig WD drive,and the drive when the machine is turned on sounds like it’s smacking something. This lasts for about 1 min, and then stops like the power was killed to the drive. Would freezing help me get the data off the drive? If so. How cold should you get the drive. I have heard that the moisture or ice crystal forming can kill the drive.
I have access to Liquid Helium, which would bring the drive to -420 degreas in a flash. This should stop the formation of any ice crystals. My next worry would be that it’s too cold at that point? Any help would be great.
I was curious. I have a 80 gig WD drive,and the drive when the machine is turned on sounds like it’s smacking something. This lasts for about 1 min, and then stops like the power was killed to the drive. Would freezing help me get the data off the drive? If so. How cold should you get the drive. I have heard that the moisture or ice crystal forming can kill the drive.
I have access to Liquid Helium, which would bring the drive to -420 degreas in a flash. This should stop the formation of any ice crystals. My next worry would be that it’s too cold at that point? Any help would be great.
I had a 60Gb harddisk which I managed to fix by doing a PCB swap. I fried the original board by accidently earthing a chip pin on the PC case it was sitting on. A friend offered me a loan of a 20Gb drive that had a few sector errors cropping up to get me by. When I got the 20Gb drive I noticed both where by the same manifacturer and had the same shaped boards. So I did a board swap. Hey presto – Working drive – all 60Gb. Quite surprised it worked however as the 20Gb was only a 5400 RPM drive and the 60Gb was 7200 RPM still didn’t complain – Its still working about 5 years on. And to top it off my friend who lent me the 20Gb drive now has a wall display he’s quite pleased with!
anybody got links or details to logic board swapping?
sources of logic boards?
i have had several hardrives in the past few years and the only 2 drives that ever failed were both WD. So I see I am not alone. I really needed the data off of one of the drives so I had to get profession help. The best deal I got was at http://nationwidedatarecovery.com/ for $500.00 now down to $400.00. I am thankful that they job done right away.
I have a US logic (USLO60U) external HD that doen’t spin. I’d really like to get the data off. How should I proceed? Is this someting a novice can do? If not, who can I take it to & how much (a range) will it cost me? The HD has always read ok, but occasionally has “startup probs” i.e. doesn’t spin. Thanks for the help.
I am in the process of performing data recovery on a WD 160GB drive and came across this post. The drive was originally mounted in an enclosure, saw some rough use, started making the dreaded clicking sound and generally became unrecognizeable. So I stuck it in the freezer – didn’t work. Sent it to 3 data recovery companies. 1-Iomega, the enclosure manufacturer’s service via ActionFront – who quoted me $1800, 2-Gillware, who in reality only performs software recovery as a front for a high-dollar invasive service which quoted me $2000, and 3-Nationwide Data Recovery, who also advertised inexpensive services, but failed to deliver and gladly offered to refer me to their super-expensive ‘partner’ company. Next, I obtained a refund from the manufacturer which was used to ebay an identical drive for the electrical system. This didn’t work either. So I set up my ‘cleanroom’, opened the drive and found that the post which the heads pivot on had snapped in half. It looks as though this post is unreplaceable, therefore I am left with two options; supergluing the broken post back into place, or transplanting the platters to my fresh drive (last resort). Never trust drives.
Can someone tell me where to get a guide of openning hard drives? I know that it is self explanatory, but I am stuck at the platters, with strange screws. I need to know what they are called, and where I can get bits for them. I know the danger, but it is a 12 year old drive and its just for experience. Thanks!
#2 ” Data is more important than hardware” yes, yes.
#39 Thanks
#41 Will look into the “Grown Defect List” and changing the “head assemblies”, I did try to change the logic board a few times.
# 43 I plan to get some drives and test the alignment issue. The platters have no “key slot” or holes for screws so I never thought about alignment. I do plan to test the alignment issue on laptop and full size drives.
# 49 I tried to use dd but the disk had errors and it took to long. tried dcfldd on another drive and it worked better (FoRK cd disk).
Thank you for your input, tests on the alignment issue, “head assemblies” and “Grown Defect List” will help me to learn. Thank you hackaday and all your comments.
Maybe this freezing gamble seems to work because of a temporary faliure. U might as well wipe the enclosed drive on a donkeys a** twice and then try it again unless u get a kick in your face for being gullable.
Yep, I’ve run a drive with the cover off before and it’s not like they die instantly. A similar disc was dropped and began failing … what happened in the dropping instance is a tiny amount of oil was squeezed from the spindle bearing and began it’s vertigal journey to the outer edge of the platter; colliding with the heads.
While I’ve never swapped the platters themselves and attempted a recovery like this one it sounds feasible since you only need the drive in it’s new home to function for an hour or two ..about the spindle alignment, maybe it’s impossible with some models I generally take the motor/platters out in one piece by sacrificing the heads, this could probably be done without scratching the disc…. how does it help to disassemble the spindle anyway? That’s just unnecessary.
I am in the process of performing data recovery on a WD 160GB drive and came across this post. The drive was originally mounted in an enclosure, saw some rough use, started making the dreaded clicking sound and generally became unrecognizeable. So I stuck it in the freezer – didn’t work. Sent it to 3 data recovery companies. 1-Iomega, the enclosure manufacturer’s service via ActionFront – who quoted me $1800, 2-Gillware, who in reality only performs software recovery as a front for a high-dollar invasive service which quoted me $2000, and 3-Nationwide Data Recovery, who also advertised inexpensive services, but failed to deliver and gladly offered to refer me to their super-expensive ‘partner’ company. Next, I obtained a refund from the manufacturer which was used to ebay an identical drive for the electrical system. This didn’t work either. So I set up my ‘cleanroom’, opened the drive and found that the post which the heads pivot on had snapped in half. It looks as though this post is unreplaceable, therefore I am left with two options; supergluing the broken post back into place, or transplanting the platters to my fresh drive (last resort). Never trust drives.
This is nothing new, not a bad article though. :)
BTW freezing is really effective.
So I fixed the snapped head post on my WD 160GB drive and the clicking noise is gone & BIOS now recognizes the drive (but at the wrong size), however I am unable to access it and it doesn’t show up as a logical drive — booting from various recovery utilities and into windows. I was told by the last data recovery co that its problem lies in “recognizing the primary data track”. I tried manually configuring head settings in BIOS but this didn’t help. Any data recovery professionals have suggestions as to what my next DIY step is? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Drrty
I am trying to do a PCB transplant on a WD800BB as a friend of mine managed to melt bananana on t the PCB. Is taking the PCB off and replacing it easy? Do I need to solder anything?
I’ve got a Maxtor 30GB drive that failed a couple of years ago when the power supply on my PC literally blew sparks out the back. I’ve tried it in a couple other machines but it’s certainly not recognized in the BIOS at all and I’m pretty sure it’s not even spinning up. Since I gave up on it I’ve kept it well packed in anti-static bags and bubble wrap, just in case.
Recently I’ve been pining for that old data so I decided to get adventurous and was able to find an online retailer who still had some of the exact same model of drive in stock. My intention is to swap out the PCB, but reading the comments of #42 make me fear that the head assembly may be blown. Does anyone else have experience with recovering a drive after a power supply failure?
I’m fairly technical, but the idea of ripping hard drives apart is still a bit intimidating. If anyone in the Madison, WI area has experience (and success!) with recovering failed hard drives and would like to take a stab at it I’d be willing to pay a reasonable amount for your assistance. Contact me on shantismurf at gmail.com. Thanks!
i think i will try the disk platter swap thing i have a few old 1.0 gb one with win98 and one with some other win95 mess on it… they are same model.. i’m going to see if the timing thing is an issue…
Swapping the PCBs doesn’t even work properly anymore on high density drives because of manufacturing tolerances.
Data will be written to a flash during the low level format.
so, swapping the pcb will work only if you are extremly lucky.
It was different a few years ago.
I am interested in this curruption of the defect list in the hard drives. Ihave a fairly new Maxtor 40GB drive that had just failed. It doesn’t spin up and the computer bios doesn’t recognize the dead drive. It’s in the freezer now,but i am not holding my breath. This curruption list seems intriguing, as I would assume some hardware and software combination could clear this list or something?
Anyways, I don’t have any torque screw drivers, but I removed some metallic film from the bottom of the drive to discover a bunch of ball bearing like items encased in a clear bathtub like enclosure. I always wondered what this was, and by reading someones post, i could assume the conclusion that it is to trap moisture. When I removed this capsule, I was able to have a peek at a fraction of a pallter, and the underside of the arm. The platter doesn’t seem to move freely, which I assume suspect since I opened up a 500Mb Maxtor drive and was able to freely spin the pallter without much force.
I have a 250 gb harddrive with about 80 gigs of important data on it that i dropped (its in an external case) does anyone have any recommendations or anyone know what the problem is? It starts up but makes a clicking sound. My comp recognizes that the harddrive was connected but the HD doesnt come up as a drive in “my computer”..Email me @ vmodi89@yahoo.com please
I have a 250 gb harddrive with about 80 gigs of important data on it that i dropped (its in an external case) does anyone have any recommendations or anyone know what the problem is? It starts up but makes a clicking sound. My comp recognizes that the harddrive was connected but the HD doesnt come up as a drive in “my computer”..Email me @ vmodi89@yahoo.com please
Please let me know how you built a clean room on your desk. I have a laptop drive that sounds like the motor spins and then stops. And it repeats itself. What do you think the problem is since you’ve diagnosed so many drives.
Email me @ bluedevlx@hotmail.com
Thank You
Hi Sir
I need some of your brains right now
i have just blown a hard drive the circut board on the back to be exact
i have purchased an identical drive and used its circut
but the computer does not recognise the drive.
what do i do now
Hi Sir
I need some of your brains right now
i have just blown a hard drive the circut board on the back to be exact
i have purchased an identical drive and used its circut
but the computer does not recognise the drive.
what do i do now
I see a few questions asking for info, help.
will try to help.
#77.Please let me know how you built a clean room on your desk.?
in the photo you can see my desk.
I used a fan before (not during) the attempt.
I used painting gloves and a mask, used a clean new cover on the desk.
washed / dried the tools before (to get oil off, if any) to clean them.
#78 I have just blown a hard drive the circuit board. ??
1.what do you mean, how did you do it.
2.computer does not recognize the drive. ??
put the pcb back on the “good” drive and insure the Bios and computer finds it.
Remember reliable static control, Anti-Static Wrist Band.
Buy a few 2 dollar drive on ebay ro some place and practice first.
I believe that freezing sometimes works because lowering the temperature of the drive and it’s electronics increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the head amplifier and possibly the signal coming out of the head too.
Google “noise temperature” for more than you could ever want to know about this.
hey guys I think this a good start for those who are intersted in harddrive architecture.
check out this link.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/177
wat if my hard drive wasnt fried but like it just says disk boot error can those steps also work for my hard drive too?
I have the same problem as a few people here – a 160gb WD drive that was in an external enclosure. I dropped it and now when turning it on it clicks over and over, then after a while it stops as if power had been cut to the drive. Can anyone offer any advice on this one? My email is bendowling[at]lineone.net. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers, Ben
The reason the drive still works without the platters being
If alignment of platters is critcal, why not simply glue them togther before unscrewing them? If you got a long-bore, hypodermic needle and filled it up with a bit of CA, you could very carefully apply it to the platters and collars, then lift it out as one unit.
Post 85 is the best and is what i was able to understand from lots of websites .
i would sugest to all of you especially Michael O’Quinn to start working on reverse engenearing mail HHD model with PIC’s
i would like to ask Michael O’Quinn who can i access the CPU or PIC or ECU what ever it is called on a HDD so i can reprograme it or read if it is still runing correctly ???
mabey even reprogram it thought the BIOS of teh PC isnt reconizing the HDD.???
I have done it with floppies really easily, i have tried it with HDD’s and it is extreamly difficult. I don’t think it is fake i just think he is really lucky. It is very hared and thought on most modern drives the platters do not need to be lined up exactly the heads, which are extreamly fragil must line up at exactly the right hright above the drive as to not cause the heads to scrape the platters, I have tried this about 10 times with mechanical failure of a drive and only once i was able to recover aly of the data, the bathroom steam trick i have heard before and used my self, there is great logic behind it just make sure the humidity is not too high.
As far as recovering hard drives…. I’ve been recovering drives since the days when 20MB drives were big. (No, that is not a typo 20 MB drives from the 1980’s.) I’ve frozen drives and was able to recover them. I’ve swapped logic boards and recovered them. Freezing and logic board swaps do work nicely.
There was one fellow tech that came across a repair that to this day I find amazing. He went on site to repair an original MAC with a 20MB external hard drive. (Think 1986.) The customer showed him how he had to start up the computer each morning. The customer removed the plastic cover off the drive case, then removed the metal cover off the drive, he then reached in and spun the drive platter to start the drive explaining he had to do this every morning for the last nine months. Since hearing that story I’ve used this as a last resort. Sometimes a quick snap of the entire hard drive will do the same thing. But sometimes a drive needs a little help to start spinning again. Physically forcing the drives to spin is a last resort but DOES work.
I have a IBM Deskstar 80gig and the other day i openend the computer to add a new mobo + cpu combo to it and after installing the new hardware i was plugging the hdd power cable from the powersupply in, and kind plugged it in at an angle and a spark shot out of the connector and the pc turned off after turning the PC back on the hard drive is no longer listed in teh startup or bios, and the drive just clicks all the time when powered, is the the PCB/logic board fryed or did something worse happen? plase help nolconnetworks@hotmail.com
Hi there, I have never seen this site before today but it’s funny ‘cuz three weeks ago I did this same thing except I did not have other drives to play with first. This guy’s HP laptop drive (IBM) went down and HP sent him a new one (WD) and I cracked it open and swaped them out and used my Knoppix disk did a full save in my tower and did the swap again and every thing is working fine. Knowing all of this now I will remember to be a lot smater about it next time. Thanks for having such a good site guys. MaDMAn
These people have saved two companies (with way too little understanding of how important regular backup is) from going under.
ActionFront (www.actionfront.com)
They cost a lot. I had 72GB of data to rescue for one company who lost a server during a recent hurricane in Florida. Their tech even dicked around with the drive for a while, possibly screwing it up more.
This company recovered everything, and shipped it back on an 80GB IDE drive the day after they received the original drive. I think the bill was around $5000. The other option would have been to manually enter years and years of accounting data into a fresh system.
For business needs, this company is the safest bet you’ll ever make. I’ve had a 100% success rate referring to them.
Thanks to all who have posted to this page. I did a successful logic board swap a week ago on an old 5.7 GB Maxtor using a board from an identical drive. The revived drive runs normally, and I’ve mirrored it to another drive in a RAID 1 array.
The part that died on the old logic board was a chip located near the spindle motor contacts. The corner of this chip was fried. I assume the chip had something to do with controlling the motor. Why it fried after 5 years in a clean and well ventilated case is a mystery. The PC is plugged into a good UPS. I removed the old power supply and replaced it with a new power supply made by Antec. If nothing else, the new power supply has a much quieter fan.
Post #70 asked if anything needed to be soldered when you swap the logic boards. Nope. Click on the link at post #82 and then click on Figure 6 to see an enlarged view of the contacts that touch the back surface of the logic board. These contacts spring up a bit from the surface of the drive when you remove the old board. Tightening the screws on the replacement board presses the board against the contacts, creating a good connection. The logic board swap requires no more skill than handling a logic board properly and keeping yourself electrically grounded. Anybody with a set of small torx screwdrivers can swap logic boards. Success is not guaranteed, but the odds of messing up are very small if you’re reasonably careful.
i am the guy with the 160 maxtor prob #78
i purchesed an identical hard drive and i took off the working circut and placed it on the hard drive that had its circut blown
they are the smae model but the circuts look a bit different
the hard drive spins up but is not recognised by the computer,do the circuts have different firmware and if yes how do i change it
please help
thanks
To steve , 160 maxtor prob #78.
Use a known good hard drive (formatted in fat 32)
and CD drive on primary IDE cable. ( to send data to)
Put the pcb back on the “good 160 Maxtor” drive you bought
and insure the Bios and computer finds it.
Use in “master setting” on secondary IDE cable.
See what the BIOS shows when it picks up the drive.
Boot the computer and see if it shows drives.
Put the pcb back on the “broken 160 Maxtor”
(Use “master setting” on secondary IDE cable.)
drive and see if Bios and computer finds it.
Try a new or another IDE cable, try on the primary ,secondary IDE cable.
Try reseating the pcb back on the “broken 160 Maxtor”.
Try another computer and cables. Try cable select, matter or slave.
Remember reliable static control, Anti-Static Wrist Band.
Boot a CD and transfer the data if you can.
I set up a AIM name of “anonymous Gort” to help.
Put “160 Maxtor” in the message.
Hello everyone –
I have been reading through all the tips and wanted to thank everyone offering suggestions. My Maxtor SATA 160 gb just went tonight (coincidence that the guy right above me has the same one?). Anyway, ran diagnostics and it said the drive failed. This is despite the error showing up in the logs is: “Keyboard Error” – and I tried switching keyboards. The hard drive has always been pretty loud, but now it will chug its normal chug when it the computer is attempting to boot, then kind of just stop. Had a few questions for anyone that can help, before I may have to pay for some assistance:
1) The diagnostic saying it failed definitely means it is done correct?
2) Is there any use in trying any other fixes before I remove the hard drive and move it to another for testing?
3) Will further booting/testing of this as the primary SATA do MORE damage or lose MORE data in the end?
4) Can anyone recommend a good program to use to get data off the drive once I transport it to another system? And this will work even though the thing spins then quits?
5) I am somewhat familiar with ghost, and I am assuming that is the next step after #4.
6) If all else fails, I doubt I will attempt to disect the thing, or freeze it, and will probably look to have it done professionally. Can you recommend a good/cheap mail off service?
Thanks for all your help and suggestions, james
#24- It is impossible to reach absolute zero and even if he did reach it what did he use to get it that cold?
I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200 160 gb HD that got a sweet drink spilled nearby and is longer recogised by the Dell Dimension that it runs in. When the machine boots it clicks repeatedly before the error comes up. Contains a lot of data, only partly backed up. What should I do? What kind of damage might the liquid have caused? Is the general opinion that putting it in the freezer a good idea? How does one handle the HD fresh from the freezer so if doesnt get too much condensation on it?
Hi Mark
I have to recon that your idea about freezing hard drives left me without voice! I suppose you have no idea about computer hardware in general and laptops in particular. No offense, but I also suppose that you missed some chemistry and physics classes! If you’ve been paying attention to the article you’ve been learning that it’s all about BATTERIES, my friend! Please, give me a favor and DON’T freeze that poor HDD! You have in my opinion, allot of chances to recover your laptop just by cleaning it.
All my good thoughts to you.
I have a RCA Lyra RD2762 and I have lost the ability to read or transfer any files to the 4G harddrive. I can see the drive but when I try to access the drive it does not allow me access. I think I’ve unplugged it before it was safe and lost the lyra application file off the hardrive that allows it to communicate with the CPU. Is there anyway I can add the Lyra Application back to the harddrive? Thanks