Fixing a Clicking Hard Drive

[ZHS]

I have WD 120GB HD that I was been using it as an external drive through an enclosure for last 3 years. While I was gone for a month long vacation, I had my PC off but the external drive was on all that time. Now when returned, the LED on power adapter was blinking so I knew something went wrong and of course when I turned my PC on, the drive was getting recognized.

Basically my HD is making clicking noise and looks like a mechanical failure. I have lot of my stuff in it that is very important to me so I am thinking about repairing it my self by taking a apart and adding a new head. I have a healthy, extra HD of same model and I was thinking of transferring the actual platters with a new head.

I know how fragile a HD is and even a small dust particle can screw up the whole thing. So I was wondering if anyone attempted doing this? Or is it even possible by a tech geek like my self who has done lot of PC upgrades, xbox modding, soldering... etc...

Any suggestions?

 

[PottedMeat]

its probably impossible without the resources of the manufacturer or some data recovery outfit. ever take apart a fairly recent harddrive ( made maybe within the last ~10 years? ) - have fun trying to get the arm off without the heads touching the surface, thats after you've solved the dust problem. hmm i guess you could do that upside down...

is the freezer trick applicable for the clicking problem?
could you do a controller board swap?

 

[DrPizza]

freezer trick?? I have a computer that's recently died. I'd love to resurrect it for about 10 minutes.

 

[PottedMeat]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
freezer trick?? I have a computer that's recently died. I'd love to resurrect it for about 10 minutes.

look up 'freezer trick click' on google - basically people have had harddrives that have failed and make a clicking noise, and as a last resort stick the thing in a plastic bag ( to prevent condensation ) into a freezer. supposedly this causes the heads/arms to flex a little ( im not too certain of this, i was thinking that the arms/heads were supposed to stay uniform in a wide temperature range ). this causes the drive to 'unstick' and the second it successfully boots up you dump all the data you can.

 

[Bassyhead]

I don't know exactly what is wrong with the drive, but you're definitely not going to be able to work on the drive or replace parts without some kind of clean room. Even if you did, you will probably damage parts in the process. You can try swapping the controller from your good drive with the clicking one just to make sure it is or isn't a mechanical problem, maybe it's the controller. As a last resort, you'll have to send it to a professional data recovery service, which will cost hundreds or thousands. That all depends on how much you value what is on the drive. Let this be a lesson to make backups in the future.

 

[birdpup]

An idea someone brought up in another thread some time ago was to substitute a steam room for the clean room. The steam room would provide airborn water particles that would effectively remove any airborn particles. This steam room could be a sauna or your bathroom with the shower on. This is just a thought and I have not tried it.

 

[EightySix Four]

yeah... water + hard drive internals... sounds like an excellent idea!

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
freezer trick?? I have a computer that's recently died. I'd love to resurrect it for about 10 minutes.

Yea, it's an old pc tech trick. I used to be skeptical, but we actually had it work a few times when I used to work in IS.

Stick the drive in a ziploc, dump it in your freezer for a couple hours. Take it out, and immediately connect it to a working PC. Boot the pc (off of your good drive, not the subject drive). If it works, the bios will recognize the drive, and it will show up in windows. From there, you can drag your needed files off (or, you could just boot into ghost and ghost the drive out).

If that doesn't work, try freezing it again, and when it comes out, give it a good whack with a rubber mallet (on the non-controller-board side, obviously). Try booting again.

If neither of those work, then you're screwed. If the data is worth more than about a thousand dollars to you, you can look into data recovery.

 

[birdpup]

Water vapor is different from water. The water vapor should not provide any immediate concerns and if it is believed there are immediate concerns then just let the hard drive sit for an hour or two to allow any condensed water to evaporate.

 

[bendixG15]

Originally posted by: birdpup
Water vapor is different from water. .

Gee, I never knew that.....

 

[ZHS]

I did tried freezer trick but no luck. I guess I will try swapping the controller board and see how it will turn out. Thanks.