Hard Drive plate transplant

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archangel

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Does anyone know if you can transplant the hard drive plates into a donor unit... Just dropped my external drive and damaged the PCB.....
 
You have damaged the external chassis, or the actual HDD unit itself?

If you have just broken the external chassis, then yes, you can take the disc out and connect it to your PC directly or into another chassis, although an impact strong enough to smash a PCB is likely to have damaged the drive so it should be binned after recovering the data.

If the PCB on the drive itself is broken, then yes it is possible to swap the PCB from another drive in some cases (I know people that have done it successfully) but it's luck of the draw really if parts are compatible even within the same model number, you need same revision and preferably firmware.
 
As to removing the physical platters themselves and transplanting to another disc, you can only do this is a cleanroom. (Not same as a clean room ;)) Any contaminant on the drive will trash it.
 
Looks like a cleanroom for me..... :(... not sure if it is with the bother...... Will get my daughter's hard drive (same as mine) and try to change the interface and see what happens.......
 
Nope. YOU can't. A data recovery specialist with a cleanroom can though. Seriously, don't even try yourself, it ain't gonna work. www.retrodata.co.uk are great for recovery. Kroll if you've got deep, enterprise grade pockets...
 
Think I will try as I have nothing to lose and i can't afford the data recovery people....

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Trust me, DIY platter swap WILL KILL YOUR DATA. Seriously, at HDD levels of precision, it isn't going to work at all. I'm 100% sure that you will lose everything, irretrievably. You might as well put your failed drive in the bin. Swapping the logic boards might work and is less risky if it's an electrical fault rather than a mechanical one, but opening the drive will 100% destroy all your data forever if you do it yourself. If you talk nicely to retrodata I'm sure you'll be looking at an affordable option and they're pros.
 
Will give then a shout in the morning

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landwomble said:
Trust me, DIY platter swap WILL KILL YOUR DATA. Seriously, at HDD levels of precision, it isn't going to work at all. I'm 100% sure that you will lose everything, irretrievably. You might as well put your failed drive in the bin. Swapping the logic boards might work and is less risky if it's an electrical fault rather than a mechanical one, but opening the drive will 100% destroy all your data forever if you do it yourself
Click to expand...
:thumbs:

In this instance a "clean room" doesn't mean a clean room such as your kitchen may be, it means a room far cleaner than any operating theatre, where even a single microscopic speck of dust doesn't exist.

However such rooms are incredibly expensive so many data recovery specialist use some form of clean chamber which while they can be expensive are far more practical:

http://www.hdrconline.com/hdrc-clean-room-benefits.php

Opening any HDD will immediately destroy any chance of data recovery and is most definitely a NO NO NO if you wish to recover anything.

In fact I personally wold not even attempt a logic board swap because a single error could possibly inflict major damage to your PC.
 
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As thought hard drive well and truly banjaxxed..... hard lesson to learn...... note off to Amazon to see if I can come up with some new toys to help with storage and back up

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I tried an adaptor this morning.....nothing...not even a spin.....pc just keeps saying drive failed

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It lights up the led but that is it

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It is out of the case.there is as small led light on the adaptor which is to confirm that there power to the adaptor. Red shows no power and blue for positive power to the hard drive

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It is one that my mate dropped off....No name on it... black stand with an adaptor and power cord plus 2 led one red and one blue......other than that nothing special about it.I have just used a spare 2.5 drive on it and it works fine

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