Cool hard drive revival DIY style

Yep, done that myself

You come up with all kinds of ideas when thousands of dollars and man-hours worth of data are on a drive that just crapped out!

how hard is it to successfully swap out internals like platters?

you would need special tools I think. If you touch the platter with your hand I imagine you would ruin it. Also the head is VERY hard to remove.

You would need a clean room, and not just any clean room. I think around 1000 or 10000 standard, but don't quote me on that. I read it a long time ago but forgot. You'd also need antistatic gear and a full suit, most likely.

Circuit boards are easy, internals are a whole different world.

I've been there myself but can honestly say I've never done that. Although the last time my hard disk broke down I decided to build a whole new PC. It was a great excuse.

heh reminds me of when I salvaged the HDD from my old xbox

=ACID RAIN= said:

You come up with all kinds of ideas when thousands of dollars and man-hours worth of data are on a drive that just crapped out!

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Oooh yeah.

When my HD crapped out on me after I brought it up to the local Scout Camp to teach the Computer Merit Badge (BAD IDEA! DO NOT DO THIS! Rocky roads are very unforgiving on hard drives), I had a ton of summer homework I had finished on it which was due in the middle of the summer (aka, about 4 days after the drive died).

I think we were in the middle of getting quotes from local companies for data recovery when I searched to see if something like replacing the logic board would work and I found that site.

aja said:

how hard is it to successfully swap out internals like platters?

Click to expand...

ben333 said:

you would need special tools I think. If you touch the platter with your hand I imagine you would ruin it. Also the head is VERY hard to remove.

Click to expand...

=ACID RAIN= said:

You would need a clean room, and not just any clean room. I think around 1000 or 10000 standard, but don't quote me on that. I read it a long time ago but forgot. You'd also need antistatic gear and a full suit, most likely.

Circuit boards are easy, internals are a whole different world.

Click to expand...

I feel that ideas like this are purely superstition based on the fact that my usual data recovery method is to remove the top of the drive so that it's open to the air. This has worked for me 90% of the time (as in, 90% of the time the "dead" drive runs perfectly or at least well enough to recover data from with the case open to the world). I've even touched the platters accidentally before taking the data off, nothing was damaged.

Most of the "dead" drives I've encountered have been due to some sort of damage to the heads &/or some error (possibly a failed circuit board) that causes the drive to fail to park the heads. Usually manually parking the heads will bring the drive back to life but sometimes I have to "lift" the heads up so that they will glide over the platters again. In a couple cases just opening the top up "fixed" the drive. Closing up said drive again would cause it to "break" once more. This also is the case with my PS2 DVD drive.....

A clean (as in low in dust) open workspace and a standard multi bit tool kit with torx, hex, and square bits are all that would be required to disassemble an entire hard drive. You definitely don't need a clean room lab (I doubt that the drives themselves are made in the type of environment you're talking about - though I'm sure they have some very good air filters). Hard drive companies aren't going to do anything special to the drive just to make sure you can't take them apart. I know because I've done this for s**** and giggles after the data was recovered. Platters make excellent mirrors by the way and the magnets make for a very strong fridge magnet .

Hi there,

I know this post is old, but I'm assuming platters are hard, but LOGIC boards are easy?

Moto7451 said:

I feel that ideas like this are purely superstition based on the fact that my usual data recovery method is to remove the top of the drive so that it's open to the air. This has worked for me 90% of the time (as in, 90% of the time the "dead" drive runs perfectly or at least well enough to recover data from with the case open to the world). I've even touched the platters accidentally before taking the data off, nothing was damaged.

Most of the "dead" drives I've encountered have been due to some sort of damage to the heads &/or some error (possibly a failed circuit board) that causes the drive to fail to park the heads. Usually manually parking the heads will bring the drive back to life but sometimes I have to "lift" the heads up so that they will glide over the platters again. In a couple cases just opening the top up "fixed" the drive. Closing up said drive again would cause it to "break" once more. This also is the case with my PS2 DVD drive.....

A clean (as in low in dust) open workspace and a standard multi bit tool kit with torx, hex, and square bits are all that would be required to disassemble an entire hard drive. You definitely don't need a clean room lab (I doubt that the drives themselves are made in the type of environment you're talking about - though I'm sure they have some very good air filters). Hard drive companies aren't going to do anything special to the drive just to make sure you can't take them apart. I know because I've done this for s**** and giggles after the data was recovered. Platters make excellent mirrors by the way and the magnets make for a very strong fridge magnet .

Click to expand...

You have been very lucky! If taking the top off caused the drive to work then more than likely the top cover was deflected down causing friction with the actuator. If you really want your data, DON'T OPEN THE DRIVE. Dust, hairs, finger prints all are huge compared to the gap between the head and the platter when it is running.

Freezing a drive sometimes works. Spinning it in your hand to get past a dead spot in the motor or unstick a stuck head can sometimes work. Once I got a drive to work just be turning it upside down (really wierd). But banging on the drive or opening it are very bad ideas and will generally mean total data loss.

AaronP said:

Hi there,

I know this post is old, but I'm assuming platters are hard, but LOGIC boards are easy?

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Yes, platters are impossible if you want a working drive in the end. Circuit boards are very easy have pose little risk to the data on the platters.

=ACID RAIN= said:

You would need a clean room, and not just any clean room. I think around 1000 or 10000 standard, but don't quote me on that. I read it a long time ago but forgot. You'd also need antistatic gear and a full suit, most likely.

Circuit boards are easy, internals are a whole different world.

Click to expand...

Actually, gloves are all that most places use. I am sure they have good air handling, but nothing extreme like a vacuum chamber . Check out Youtube for some videos, they actually just nudge stuck drives with their hands.