[SOLVED] Failed Hard Drive

[geoff.edkins]

Ok, Havnt been able to find an answer for this one. My Seagate 2tb Drive used to click and carry on , did for ages and then just when I thought I should buy a back up it failed. Now, I know all the blah blah about dust etc , so I did the best I could and looked inside. The read / write heads was in the middle of the platter , so I was able using a glove and screwdriver gently move it. However , it would only move to the far edge of the platter and not go to home ( off the disk ) . It was like solid. The disk has now changed to beeping and never was recognized by bios and windows after failing. So, I removed the magnet Brake and the read write arm moved freely, soon as I put the magnet back on the heads would not go any further than the edge of the platter again. Thing is I have a lot of data on here and some photos of friends who have passed. I cannot afford data recovery so it isn’t an option. The platters appear to be in good condition, no scoring. I thought it was the PCB but now thing the issue is with the read write heads, irony being the magnet appears to be stopping it returning to home. The heads move freely over the disk the other way if turned with a screw driver. Hope I made myself clear, I am not going to be outdone by this thing and really want to exhaust every option to fix it, just to maybe get anything off it would be a bonus. I know it’s been opened etc etc but I really would like people’s input on the problem and solution over the fact the data could be corrupt, thank you. There are plenty of donor disks on eBay for parts , but don’t want to buy if it’s terminal.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Once you opened the drive it was game over. You will not be able to recover anything. Even a professional recovery service, with the proper tools, will have a very difficult time of it now. The data is gone. View this as a valuable lesson in the importance of backups.

 

[geoff.edkins]

So , if this is the case , how do the data recovery people recover data after having to repair drives. It doesn’t make sense that in order to repair drives and recover data , disks need to be opened. So how is me opening it any different to them.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

The data recovery folks have the proper clean room environment in which to open the drive. You do not and have now contaminated the platters with dust/dirt many times the size of the head gap. In addition, you tampered with the head mechanism, which may well have altered the head alignment. Opening hard drives is not for amateurs.