Does anybody know what's wrong with my old hard drives heads mechanism? At startup they go back and forth a few times, attempting to get on the platters, then the disk gives up spinning.
Any help in recovering the data left on the disk would be very appreciated.
Here is some video of the drive itself. And here is a pic of the drive for reference.
2 Answers
You have (according to the video) a physically disassembled the drive.
I truly doubt you did this in a clean room.
So:
- In all likelihood the drive is just dead. Dust (impossible to avoid in this situation) will damage the platters.
- You might try a local recovery agency, but I think (because you took the drive apart) that will be very expensive. Also, since you opened it, they might refuse it. You would need to inquire.
The cheap, quick and easy data recovery method is to restore from backups. Not having those is unfortunately the smaller of your mistakes.
The fact that you've disassembled the drive is what rules out the not-so-expensive solutions.
HDDs are sensitive even to tension of the case screws. The fact that it's disassembled alone can be the reason why the heads don't work correctly.
Heads are scratching side edge of platters, so they may be damaged. If that's the case, a head transplant will be necessary.
The platters are now dirty because you've opened the drive outside of a clean room. Just to give you an idea: keeping the platters clean is so important that the standard 99,9% pure isopropyl alcohol is not good enough for wiping the platters.
At this point you have to find a good data recovery company and pay a lot to get some of your data.
Then it would be wise to plan your backup strategy.
