I have a what I believe to be a physically damaged hard drive with data on it. (My guess it is the heads). When I turn the drive on, one hears a knocking sound for about 30 seconds and then the drive automatically shuts off.
The data on the drive is not important enough to pay a professional to fix it, and software recovery tools won't work.
I would like to take the opportunity to open and try repairing the disk myself (as a learning process).
Agreed. But if you can find an identical known good controller PDB, swapping that might have at least a chance. Going inside is basically killing it. It's not a physical problem like a screw fell out!
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That's where you use the drill press. Once something is garbage, it doesn't matter if you damage it, hence drilling out the screws is perfectly viable at that point, to get the magnets out.
You don't actually need a drill press. A hand drill will work, though not one of those cordless screwdrivers that get called "drills".
You have zero chance of fixing it by opening it up, but if you don't care about the data you may as well pop it open. They have some pretty insanely powerful magnets in them in the head actuator, fun to play with but be careful, they can pinch.
Classic case of a hard drive that has lost it servo track and can not find track 0. Caused by a bad track Zero, bad head or bad mux chip in the hd chamber.
It's dead, really dead, will not magiaclly ressurect at some future time.
buddd wrote in news:1183847601.898143.267220 @d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
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Actually, best advice is to take it apart and salvage the magnets. If you open the case, outside of a clean room, you have just ruined the heads and the platters.
As for the clicking sound, it is the heads trying to find their position. Electronic problems are just as likely to cause the clicking as a head problem.
It has been many years since a technician in the field could replace the heads in a hard drive. I did it back in 1982. But those heads were much larger, flew higher and unloaded physically from the platter. That meant the platter spun up to speed and then the heads would load. A few pieces of loose dust got blown off during the spin up.
Now, the heads STAY on the platter. Everything must be ultra clean or the heads will crash before they get to flying speed.
Then there is the problem of aligning the heads, even if you could replace them. In 1981 it took a scope and the right software to put the heads over an eccentricly written track that was special for alignment. I have no idea how the tiny hall effect heads are aligned.
Good luck.
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bz 73 de N5BZ k
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
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snipped-for-privacy@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black) wrote in news:f6pjib$93d$ snipped-for-privacy@theodyn.ncf.ca:
....
A hefty pair of diagonal cutters will do, too. Use them like a can opener and peel the top open. Sometimes they can be used to turn the screws too.
:)
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bz 73 de N5BZ k
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+ser@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
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