Recovery Force® Data Recovery Forum

Hello guys. please read this small intro through. I got a external drive which dropped. And now it won't spin up. It sounds exactly like this sound:
https://voca.ro/cvZ3t6RD6NN

So I have not opened the drive which I know is stupid to try and fix this myself. But I have a really low income. Below 1100 and It's the reason why I put off buying spare disks for backups in the first place. But here I am and I need to do everything I can myself!

So I had another really old harddrive by maxtor. a diamondmax 10 320gb (see gallery on postimage.org) which was running really slow so I stopped using it years ago. And thought I could use this drive to practice unsticking heads
https://postimg.cc/gallery/Hsmm8nD

But heres the thing. I know this diomond max has no ramp. That's not the issue here. I wanted to practice what I see on youtube everywhere. Rotate the spindle counterclockwise and pulll back the headstack at the same time. But darnit. In this diamondmax at least, it ain't that easy!

I pulled back the arm without lifting the heads to hear what sound it makes. It sounds like supersmooth plastics surfaces rubbing over eachother. highpitched screechy sound. Me thinking that this is friction of the heads over the platters. No. matter this is the practice disk. But when I engage by pulling the upper arm slightly up. This does snt improve much. No matter what I do. I tried removing the magnet to see if this would smoothen the pullback of the headstack but no improvement. The arm seems really really stiff. Even with a metal dental pick pulling the heads It is really hard. I also think I need a clamp because this is non-workable rotating the spindle which has some resistance and pulling back the heads without making a scratch

Oh yeah, I made small cleanroom as youtuber DIY perks did. With hepa filter at one end and all. Pic comes maybe later. Ask. if you cannot wait. Link to video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xPEa0Wc9iUc

What tips can you guys share for me to practice the unsticking of heads, to make the actual problemdrive a success?

For us to help, you really should provide details about what the model of drive you need to have recovered.

A few generic thoughts, based on the idea of unsticking heads with DIY.

1. you really should inspect the heads and platters under a microscope after you remove them
2. you should not power the drive on until you are 100% sure that the heads are 100% physically fine
3. before you power the drive on, you will want to have a system available that can help resolve any firmware damage that resulted from the heads touching down (yes, the firmware is stored on the platters)
4. you should never connect the patient drive to a system that will try to mount it (yes, even linux will attempt to read sectors from the drive, even if it is set not to mount) and it is best to use a hardware write blocker
5. do not attempt to recover the data from the patient drive directly. your first objective should be to clone it to a known good healthy drive and then do the file system recovery procedures on the stable clone
6. if you fail to recover the data, you will never know if it was never recoverable at all, if it wasn't recoverable because of what you did or if it is still possible to recover

FIY, Recovery Force only charges our minor recovery rate of $450 CAD to recover data from a drive with stuck heads, if the patient heads can be salvaged. 99% of the time we get a drive after a user or their technician has tried it first, there is visible media damage on the platters and donor heads are needed. So, instead of getting close to 100% of the data for $450, the user ends up paying $1000 or more to only get a much smaller subset of their data, if any data can be recovered at all.

So, before you start, be 100% sure that your data is absolutely not worth the $450. It would be better to set the drive aside until you can afford it than to waste time and money making it worse.

Yes I know. I have not opened the drive yet. Problem is Im not living in the USA. Im in Europe. I am also afraid that shipping the drive could make it worse because of the drive tumbling as a package through transit. I don't know what to do.

Do you have any tips that I can try to oractice insticking heads on my throwaway diomandmax hdd (see the pictures)?
What is the sound I hear which seems like smooth plastics rub over one another. Is it yhe heads over yhe platters?

I come across this set on aliexpress. Which of these two has a unsticking tool for western digital 3 platter drives?
Drive is WD30EZRZ-00Z5HBO 3tb comes. from wd elements external enclosure)





Thanks.

None of those tools are designed for unsticking heads from platters. If you are in Europe, depending on where you are, there are many reputable and affordable professional labs to choose from. The first to come to mind is PCImage in the UK.

If you securely package your hard drive in a box with lots of padding around it, it would be a lot safer to ship than attempt a DIY recovery, in my opinion.

Remember, getting the heads to the parking position is the easiest part of a stuck head case. Most of the destruction to the drive happens immediately after the user then powers on the drive and allows damaged heads to scrape damaged platters.

Another lab option in Europe - PCLab . They are also reputable and affordable.

Hi

Really, if data is really important, you should not mess with the drive.
You can turn a pretty easy job on a very expensive one or even an unrecoverable one.

This should be an affordable recovery if heads don't get damaged.
If you located in Portugal or Spain I can give you a free pick up with a shipping company.

But even from another country, is not that expensive and if you package correctly there will be no more problem with the drive.

pclab wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:48 pm Hi

Really, if data is really important, you should not mess with the drive.
You can turn a pretty easy job on a very expensive one or even an unrecoverable one.

This should be an affordable recovery if heads don't get damaged.
If you located in Portugal or Spain I can give you a free pick up with a shipping company.

But even from another country, is not that expensive and if you package correctly there will be no more problem with the drive.

[Moderator discard the previpus message bc it has many spellingmistakes]

Hello PcLab. How much would you rask for just solving any mechanical issues. Unsticking the heads and checking the heads. The drive is truecrypted and holds sensitive information about my family. ID scans and other documents. I really cannot give you or any Datarecovery service the password. I did contact DR services and all of them require the password and ask 900-1200 euros.

Is it possible to also do just a diskimage without the need for the password?

Im on welfare and the DR prices make me sick to my stomach. I have not opened the drive. But I am planning to with my selfmade DIY cleanroombox with hepa-filter

Eugene

Hi

Well, in your case there are 2 possibilities:

1st: unstuck heads and check if they can work: 150€ + shipping
2nd: all the above and if heads are OK, clone the drive to another one with at least 75% of sectors read: 400€ + shipping

I recommend the 2nd option, because even if the HDD can work again after unstuck, the probability of failing during copy of data is rather high.

On both situations I can't guarantee that data is fine because it will encrypted as you say.

Thanks