Hard Drive Data Recovery - Western Digital Head Swap
User comments:
[2010-06-05 22:36:58] acsdata - Thanks for the call ...
Thanks for the call. Yes, it does get expensive, and the value of your data is definitely what determines if it is worth it or not. There's more to it, than what is just shown in the videos. Actually if you call around, when it comes to companies that can actually do this type of work, $500 to $800 is pretty reasonable.
[2010-06-02 16:03:06] rbrashear68 - I just called these ...I just called these guys on a WD 320 GB and asked for a ballpark price. $500-800 for repair/recovery! What the heck!!! I guess it depends on what your data is worth....but that seems rediculous imo.
[2010-06-01 02:19:25] Co0lFlame - I have a WD 2.5" ...I have a WD 2.5" HDD that 'sings when its plugged in, I can't access any information on it, can it be saved?
[2010-05-28 05:53:54] yashiseulbi - western digital ...western digital hard drive are low quality.... im sure i have 160g wd hdd and now its dead after 5 months using it in my pc....
[2010-05-18 14:04:39] ratbag359 - @BigBdsb the tools ...@BigBdsb the tools name is MaxBlast 5
[2010-05-18 14:00:31] ratbag359 - I would say it has ...I would say it has a corrupt partition table or mbr
[2010-05-10 21:23:32] sijmenjan - Tip for the stupid ...Tip for the stupid geeks who do it anyway (like me): DON'T let the magnet at 3:45 touch the platters!
[2010-05-09 11:11:50] trunksss5 - I assume with Data ...I assume with Data protection act that you cannot look at the drives contents?
[2010-04-27 22:47:12] 3soccerstars - My WD 180g on an ...My WD 180g on an emachines T5048 seemed to malfunction- but I am not sure. PC won't boot in amy mode- and I get a series of .sys commands (multi 0 disk 0 rdisk 0 partition 1/ system32\drivers...). Trying to swap out drives in other units but don't know how to diagnose if it is bad or it its some other part of my mediocre-at-best PC; or a virus. I'm still working on it if anyone has any insight- thx in advance.
[2010-04-27 05:20:03] chikinngritz - I guess this is ...I guess this is only for computer HDDs and not MP3 HDDs, or do you guys do that as well? They're ZIF connector HDDs. Also how would I gain some hands on with this? Are there classes? Should I just walk into a HDD recovery firm and ask for a job? I find this more interesting then the circuits I'm learning about in classes.
[2010-04-23 18:26:34] ToxicWaffe87 - where the hell are ...where the hell are you the beach?
[2010-04-17 15:23:29] xan1242 - Hello,I have ...Hello,I have Western Digital WD360GD Raptor HDD and after some time on it,it keeps showing bad sectors.I have low level formatted it and it fixes it temporarely.I have two of them.Only one of them is showing bad sectors after some time.Please help!It does not have any physical damage.
[2010-04-12 10:11:33] xenor69 - Strange, I had a ...Strange, I had a Seagate drive that just failed....click..click..click of a resetting head. Pulled the PCB from its "brother" and was able to copy all the data from it before sending the drive in for warranty repair. I spent more time looking for videos on youtube than swapping parts. Perhaps older HDD that are actually configured to run at identical speeds make more sense. These new drives tuned uniquely off the line seem to suck at RAID and apparently make it more expensive to recover data
[2010-04-11 22:27:16] Supuhstar - back up your back- ...back up your back-ups, people. ;3
[2010-04-08 17:50:23] acsdata - Swapping PCB's does ...Swapping PCB's does nothing when the heads fail. Additionally, even when a PCB does fail, aside from a handful of drives, a simple swap would do nothing, even if they came off the assembly line one right after the other.
[2010-04-08 00:29:46] Kingsherry - HOW WOULD YOU TAKE ...HOW WOULD YOU TAKE APART A 320 GB?
[2010-04-06 15:18:19] xenor69 - I'm glad I buy my ...I'm glad I buy my HDD in pairs. I can swap the PCB fairly easily if one of them dies and make preparations to replace the pair. So much easier and cheaper than the insane costs of doing professional data recovery. Yes...."some" hard drive recovery can be costly and tedious, but a good portion are simple and involve only a little bit of interactive tech time. Total GB doesn't matter either b/c no one watches while it copies.....
[2010-04-06 13:46:52] acsdata - In most drives the ...In most drives the logic board holds unique adaptive data for that particular drive, so it needs to stay with the drive. We sometimes run into issues where there are a whole host of problems, such as the board was fried, which took out the pre-amp on the heads. So just swapping the heads won't work, and we need to repair the board as well. Usually when you do a head swap, you have to remove the board to get to the screw securing the head stack, which is what I did here.
[2010-04-04 16:09:57] Realitytourist - I like this, and I ...I like this, and I can't understand why people want to bitch at you as if this is supposed be an instructional vid on how to do this at home. I understand that basically you're grabbing the heads from a new match drive and installing them in the broken drive, but are you using the original logic board in the old drive as well? So the only thing you need from the new drive are heads? Why did you remove the logic board, just to get at screws or to keep from damaging it?
[2010-03-25 02:23:57] crazyfrogger213 - how do people fix a ...how do people fix a portable usb hard drive with the usb input to the hard drive not working?
[2010-03-22 19:39:24] HostileHST - If starting fresh, ...If starting fresh, which it sounds like you want to do, you can remove the partition using manager (xp disk manager), it will free up the so called used space. It will unallocate the drive and you will havd to re-allocate it, set up the partition, make it active, very easy with xp disk manger. Many tools you can get to do this also.
[2010-03-22 00:21:18] akaadam13music - you might have ...you might have partitions making it look like 29 but rreally 39
[2010-03-21 21:37:57] combossss - acsdata can you ...acsdata can you help me my maxtor has been crasht and making stange noises its a maxtor diamondMax plus 9 120GB sata/150 HDD
[2010-03-20 06:35:58] ewwcwf - try to defragment ...try to defragment your disk Slic3R1. under properties
[2010-03-12 18:26:17] Slic3R1 - 1: my Hard Drive ...1: my Hard Drive capacity is 39 GB (pretty pathetic) 2: it says that there are 29 GB used and 6 GB free space but i already deleted everything on the drive and it still says that there are 29 GB of used space so what should i do to get the 29 GB because i need them for some games
[2010-03-12 15:13:55] acsdata - Thanks. In all ...Thanks. In all honesty, one of the driving forces behind doing this video was to deter people who have important data from attempting a recovery on their own. We get at least 1 call a day where people specifically say, they were going to give it a shot, but once they watched this video they decided not to. In most cases when people attempt the recovery on their own, there's really very little we can do to rectify the problems they cause. We see platters removed, scratches, you name it.
[2010-03-12 08:49:28] westkan - I wonder what part ...I wonder what part of "No Diagnostic Fees No Evaluation Fees No Data / No Charge We Only Get Paid If We Recover Your Data" isn't entirely clear? People sending in a "ruined" HD means no payday. Some just don't think before making accusations of conspiring to entice others to open their own HD. Yea it's an infomerrcial ,but I founding it interesting.
[2010-03-10 22:58:04] causticblog - Why would you pay $ ...Why would you pay $1000 to get your data back when you could have bought a spare drive for $100 and made an image or backup every now and then? I guess it's because people are dumb, and it's great there's professionals out there to fix it. But wouldn't it be better if manufacturers told us how easy it is to image drives using something like the Acronis 2009 boot CD? Hec, I don't even have to reinstall windows these days. I just load up the image from an external hard drive. Simple
[2010-03-09 02:17:37] kakureru - top secret sticky ...top secret sticky tape and post it notes :P just kidding
[2010-03-07 04:08:48] komododr - Great advertising ...Great advertising vid!
[2010-03-06 18:23:16] captainchris12 - uhm i accidentally ...uhm i accidentally unplugged the USB wire when my computer was transferring files from external > computer.... lol anyway to fix it..
[2010-03-06 01:42:03] trilafide - Yea illegal, your ...Yea illegal, your ripping copywrited movies. You can go to jail for 5 years and pay 200,000 dollar fine. Don't you even see the copy write notice? I would call the cops but I'm not that bad :D lols
[2010-03-05 18:16:31] acsdata - I appreciate your ...I appreciate your comments, but I don't really understand your problem. Our method for doing head alignments is something we spent years perfecting, and invested a great deal of time and money on. On WD drives in particular, it is a big issue for many data recovery companies. We don't show our process, because it would be stupid to give away this information to our competitors. It has nothing to do with our customers. Our customers have no desire to attempt this due to the value of their data.
[2010-03-05 04:12:19] madeyes4u - ONE STAR for this: ...ONE STAR for this: (see your info box) "We also don't show our method for aligning the heads on this particular model. " Ha! Are you afraid that your customers will leave you? douche.
[2010-03-04 19:52:31] acsdata - I believe that it ...I believe that it is stated in the video description what this video is about. There are also numerous warnings advising people not to attempt this on their own if their data has any real value. I'm really not understanding the comment that we are making people open their drives.
[2010-03-03 19:42:27] TheBrotherKanker - What is this video ...What is this video made for I don't understand really! acsdata is showing people some operations that are NOT COMPLETE and making them open their hd's just to ruin them even more to get another client! That's suck!
[2010-02-28 09:41:28] OhNoNotMyPenis - its a loud grinding ...its a loud grinding noise.i think the head is sumhow stuck to one part on the platter as on powerdown i cant hear the head "park" the drive aint been dropped or knocked so no clue how it happend