Attempted a hard drive repair

[Rakehellion]

I have a hard drive with a bad read head. I swapped the platters and the circuit board with another drive of the same model and firmware. It was recognized by the computer once, but didn't mount. The drive spins but the head doesn't move and it doesn't show up in my devices. Is it possible that the heads are incompatible or is something else wrong?

 

[Paperdoc]

What you did cannot work. Hard drives MUST be incredibly clean inside because microscopic bits of dust can get trapped under the heads and cause permanent damage to the platter surface. They are built and assembled in super-clean rooms and sealed. Merely by opening the unit you have destroyed that. Further handling in your work guarantees it is too contaminated to work. There may also be a big issue with the alignment of the heads with the actual magnetic tracks on the disk surfaces

Net result is that, on first start-up, the circuit board may respond properly so that your computer recognizes the existence of the device, but the the first attempt to use it (spin and position the heads at Track 1) produces an error condition because it could not read anything properly. This will happen every time you try. You cannot fix this!

IF you have absolutely NEEDED data on those disks and no backup copy, you may be able to hire a specialty company that recovers data from damaged HDD's. The charge a LOT for their work and can get some (maybe even most, but rarely all) data from them onto a new HDD. Otherwise, the unit is a sample to look at but will never be usable.

 

[Torn Mind]

You might have had a chance had you not opened it, OP.

Not too long ago, I threw a pair of headphones and it hit the hard drive enclosure. The drive actually worked for about 8 to 12 hours, but the gradual deterioration ultimately made the drive no longer recognizable. Once sent in to the labs, they saw light scratching on the drive platters....

I tried two companies...the first one...well...they mentioned the damage...but boy they oddly held my drive hostage for whatever strange reason. First making claims they were still working on it...then just dragging their feet.

The second one, Secure Data Recovery(one of four authorized companies that WD recognizes as one that would not screw up the WD warranty), were more professional and gave progress updates. They said the image failed to mount and they returned it to me, I had to pay return shipping to get the drive back.