I looked up images and they are all nice and shiny! Mine looks like the beard of the magnet shaving art toy guy, Wooly Willy.
I took it all apart (an old computer I’m trying to get going) and it looks like the little “things” (pickups, or something) at the head on the actuator arm got bunged up (maybe folder over) and were dragging all over the disk/platter. Not so shiny anymore.
I further assume that NO data will be recoverable from this disk. Am I right? No sense in trying to stick it in a working drive to see if I can retrieve anything?
Well, it was fun to take apart, and now I’ve got a bunch of nice little screws.
Sounds like you have a “head crash”. It may be possible to recover data but it would require someone who specializes in this and would be very expensive. The fact that you’ve taken it apart when you have no expertise in this area doesn’t increase your chances.
I don’t understand what you mean by “stick it in a working drive.” Do you mean putting the platter in another disk drive? These things are sealed for a reason. Tolerances are very tight and you don’t want to admit dust, much less an Oreo crumb. This is not a DIY project.
Sure. Why not give it a try? (I won’t in this case, because I suspect the disk is toast.) But if I busted it open and found a nice shiny one, say the motor wasn’t spinning or a non-disk problem, Hell Yeah I’d stick it another carcass to see if I could save my stuff!
You would be surprised what I’ve accomplished with a little “Can Do” attitude.
Yee-ouch. I think CookingWithGas is right. I think the head was scraping the surface of the platters and that is what caused your disk to fail. Unless you are really desperate to get some particular bit of data off of the drive, I probably wouldn’t bother doing anything with it at this point. Chances are much of your data was scraped off along with the surface of the platters. I would be very surprised if you get much useful data off of it no matter what you do.
I’ve taken quite a few old broken disk drives apart over the years. They make nice little conversation pieces if you leave them sitting open on your desk. Expect everyone who walks by to leave fingerprints on the platters. After they’ve already left fingerprints on the platters, the number one comment is usually something about how they probably shouldn’t touch the platters. Heh.
Also, if you take the magnets out of the drive, BE CAREFUL WITH THEM. They are small but very powerful and can cause more damage than you might expect if you manage to get some skin pinched between them.
It’s fairly easy to swap controller boards between disk drives, assuming that they are the exact same model (and sometimes they have to be within a certain serial number range even then). You don’t have to crack open the case for that. Cracking the case open and swapping out things like heads and motors is much more serious surgery. Be aware that hard drives are sealed except for a tiny port that lets in air, and this port has a filter over it to prevent dust from getting into the drive. Small pieces of dust can ruin the data on the platters. These parts aren’t designed for a DIY swap.
Yeah, under magnifying glass, you can see the detached (I don’t know what to call it) puck or pickup on the head. I tried to jimmy it back into place, but no go (yet). I’ll have to break out the serious tools. Swiss Army Tweezers!
About those magnets, I’ve got some Neodymium magnets from a place I used to work that make those hard drive ones feel about as strong as a Post-It note! I know about that pinching hazard.
Sorry, but your drive is dead. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. It’s kicked the bucket. This is an ex-disk drive.
Seriously, if you can see visible shavings of the magnetic coating scraped off the platter, there’s no way it’s going to work again, even if the head weren’t unrecoverably damaged, which it sounds like it is. That coating is where the data is stored. When it’s no longer attached to the platter, there’s no data to read.
Yep. Gone off to join the bleedin’ choir invis’bel.
It was fun tinkering. I hooked it up with the cover off and fired it up to watch it do its little dance. Almost had me thinking it was going to boot up!
Once you exposed the disk platters to non-filtered air, that was unlikely to happen. Your average dust particle looks like a five ton boulder as far as a modern disk head is concerned.
