Hard Drive Failure

[BrianS]

I have a 120 GB Western Digital HD that has failed on me. I know it is not recommended but I did open it up to see what was going on inside. The platters spin freely, so I believe it is a logic board problem. Because the HD is about 4 years old, I can't really find the same exact hard drive with the same firmware on the logic board to try to relpace that. I am guessing I have 2 options now.

1. Send my drive to Drive Savers (or a company like that) ans spend somewhere near $1000 to recover the data or...

2. Try to replace the platters into another hard drive. Cross my fingers that no dust gets on the important parts of the platters and no scratches occur.

How hard is it to replace the platters and put them in a new drive? Is there some service out there that will do this for less than $1000 (looking for no more than $200). There is data (digital photographs) on there that I really want back, but it is not important enough to warrant spending tons of money on it.

What do you guys think?

 

[Kage]

I'm not sure, but I believe opening it up wouldn't have done it any more good. Its air tight.

What does it do when you turn it on?

 

[BrianS]

Absolutely nothing. and I know its not the power cable because I have since replaced the drive and the new one works fine.

 

[Raffaz]

Well, the chances are that its screwed now because you have opened it up when its sealed, its sealed for a reason mate. If the data is worth $1000 to you, then i think the recovery specialist is gonna be your best option, otherwise i would write it off.

 

[BrianS]

I have heard stories of people being able to replace the platters into a new hard drive and getting lucky with being able to copy the data off them to another. Does anyone know if you have to get a drive that would be the same size/brand etc. a 120 GB hard drive is rather cheap so I can afford to trash a brand new one. it would be a lot cheaper than going professional about it.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Never NEVER open a hard drive! Haven't you ever seen how they make hard drives? They are assembled in a completely dust free sterile room by people wearing full body suits to keep anything from coming off their bodies and getting on the hard drive.

By you opening up your hard drive, you just ensured that it's completely screwed.

Put it back together and pay the $1000 to get the data recovered. Thats about all you can do now.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

You likely ruined the drive to what a basic data recovery can do.

 

[lhuser]

Actually, it's not that screwed. It've opened drives before, but they seal it dust free, so, unless you have a dust free environement, it's done. It would work, but if the hand hits dust, that's a lot of damage that would occur. However, if the drive doesn't spin, then I think it's a short in the logic board. You could get a replacement from a bad HDD from a store, but that's not as easy as you think.