Question Hard Drive Failure Help 2TB

[ForgivenCreation]

Hello, I did not expect to be posting to this forum or any forum however I have encountered some unfortunate circumstances. Recently my Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB drive got the click of death. I ordered another drive of the same model only a year newer. 2016 vs 2017. I replaced my read write head thinking it was the problem as most posts on these Toshiba drives say the head goes first. Inside looks perfect with minimal particles. After installing the new head from the 2017 model It booted once and then I turned the pc off, after I turned to pc back on with another drive to emergency transfer the 2016 drive info off of. Started doing a different clicking. I went to my second option the motherboard having a fault. After swapping motherboards windows 10 told me via disk management that I needed to initialize my disk. I did not do that and went on researching and ended up with the BIOS chip needing to be swapped. I figured after watching a number of videos that it seemed easy enough. I don't know what happened and it doesn't matter the deed is sadly done. While trying to desolder the old chip off the board it broke the corner off the chip and now I am in trouble. (Chips Toast) So the drive works but windows want to wipe the disk because I am guessing firmware is not matching. My question now is there any and I mean any way of wiping the new chips BIOS or installing something or coding to get my info off the physical platters. I looked the numbers up and it looks like I can buy new chips but will they have the right info to work in correlation with whatever is on the disk. I am assuming the disconnect is the disk has one firmware coding deal while the chip has another. To refresh I have the old platters with a (Paired) new read write head and motherboard from the 2017 model in the 2016 model. I heard that you can send the platters off and companies can bypass firmware and transfer data right off them with special machines?
Thanks,
Tyler

 

[USAFRet]

Firstly...
Is there any critical data on this drive?
Like, life changing. Lack of which would get you fired/divorced/jailed?

 

[DSzymborski]

Hello, I did not expect to be posting to this forum or any forum however I have encountered some unfortunate circumstances. Recently my Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB drive got the click of death. I ordered another drive of the same model only a year newer. 2016 vs 2017. I replaced my read write head thinking it was the problem as most posts on these Toshiba drives say the head goes first. Inside looks perfect with minimal particles. After installing the new head from the 2017 model It booted once and then I turned the pc off, after I turned to pc back on with another drive to emergency transfer the 2016 drive info off of. Started doing a different clicking. I went to my second option the motherboard having a fault. After swapping motherboards windows 10 told me via disk management that I needed to initialize my disk. I did not do that and went on researching and ended up with the BIOS chip needing to be swapped. I figured after watching a number of videos that it seemed easy enough. I don't know what happened and it doesn't matter the deed is sadly done. While trying to desolder the old chip off the board it broke the corner off the chip and now I am in trouble. (Chips Toast) So the drive works but windows want to wipe the disk because I am guessing firmware is not matching. My question now is there any and I mean any way of wiping the new chips BIOS or installing something or coding to get my info off the physical platters. I looked the numbers up and it looks like I can buy new chips but will they have the right info to work in correlation with whatever is on the disk. I am assuming the disconnect is the disk has one firmware coding deal while the chip has another. To refresh I have the old platters with a (Paired) new read write head and motherboard from the 2017 model in the 2016 model. I heard that you can send the platters off and companies can bypass firmware and transfer data right off them with special machines?
Thanks,
Tyler

How exactly do you plan see particles without a microscope? There's a reason clean room certification requires no more than a single one-micron particle per cubic foot. You simply cannot see the vast majority of dust particles in a room; you'd probably have more success diagnosing someone's blood pressure from a text message.

Opening a hard drive except under clean room conditions is extremely reckless. This is now a job for a data recovery lab to deal with. And by tinkering with the hard drive, you may have made it both more expensive and less likely to be successful. If this is important data that you must have, be prepared to budget the cost of an entirely new computer (and not a budget one). Yes, that's expensive, but not keeping up with the basics of responsible PC ownership, like multiple, properly scheduled, backups, can be very expensive. As is a slapdash repair that one has no business trying to do without the proper tools, environment, and knowledge base.

 

[ForgivenCreation]

No thankfully nothing major major. I mean Major for myself but nothing like real serious. I have a lot of the drive backed up to a WD 2TB passport but I couldn't get everything. I also have 10X specialty glasses along with compressed air in a can. Worked amazing except the chip breaking which is a different deal all together. I would like my questions answered without the cliché don't open a drive without being in a clean room. I don't have money and an reaping the result of such circumstances and need options not criticisms from certain individuals. Windows sees the drive but cant access it. The hardware manager says I could uninstall or update drivers. It also says the drive its "working properly" but windows isn't showing it in explorer.

 

[DSzymborski]

There's no right to hear only advice that you want to hear. That you think that a clean room for hard drive work is a cliché is further evidence that you're manifestly unqualified to open a hard drive under any conditions.

 

[kerberos_20]

i did open dead drive once and from my vast knowledge, if drive is spinning, you can touch it and there will be no fingerprints, drive looks totaly clean, but once its not spinning and you touch it, fingerprints will remain

 

[ForgivenCreation]

Thankfully I wore gloves and did not touch the platters so no fingerprints. After doing some more research I have come across a couple programs I have questions about. It seems as though when a BIOS chip is wrong the drive doesn't turn on? My drive will spin up and do a search on the platter but it doesn't find anything. My computer boots in when originally I wont. Will programs like Clonezilla or DDrescue work on a drive with the wrong BIOS settings? Do these programs bypass the BIOS and copy sector by sector just by the drive being plugged in?

 

[USAFRet]

So, to recap

Symptom: "click of death"

Then....
Replaced the read/write head ( looks perfect with minimal particles)

a different clicking
swapping motherboards
Swap BIOS chip (broke the old one)


And now you want to use clonezilla?
Sure...go for it.
It won't work, but at least you'll be sort of familiar with clonezilla.

And its not just "fingerprints". Unless you did this in a clean room, there is dust in the air.

 

[ForgivenCreation]

So Clonezilla needs a working BIOS to function. Also is there anyway to wipe the firmware and download a fresh install without wiping the drive. I also looked at my original read write heads with a 25x lens and I could see the chips really well and they look really clean which supports the fact that the motherboard had an issue. Another options I am not sure about is a program like wondershare recoverit, what do programs like these do , are they a scam?

 

[USAFRet]

So Clonezilla needs a working BIOS to function.

It needs to be able to read the drive.

 

[ForgivenCreation]

I was able to slip the broken pin back in its little holding spot on the chip the question is is it making contact with the micro wire. I took some pictures but cant post them:/ If I am able to get the chip to work I read you can copy the BIOS data off the chip, how does one do that? Also this sounds crazy but what would happen if I clicked update drivers for the drive in the device manager?