Amateur HD disassembly and data recovery?

A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt at data recovery for her? I could try to pick up a working HD of exactly the same model on Ebay. I could assemble a miniature "clean room" out of clear plastic sheeting and duct tape. I understand the basic concept is to remove the platter and install it into a previously working unit. Then see if the disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery software. Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

On 30/11/2013 18:47, Davej wrote:
A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt at data recovery for her? I could try to pick up a working HD of exactly the same model on Ebay. I could assemble a miniature "clean room" out of clear plastic sheeting and duct tape. I understand the basic concept is to remove the platter and install it into a previously working unit. Then see if the disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery software. Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

A question of the Torque settings for the screws!

http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26646

Davej wrote:
A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt at data recovery for her? I could try to pick up a working HD of exactly the same model on Ebay. I could assemble a miniature "clean room" out of clear plastic sheeting and duct tape. I understand the basic concept is to remove the platter and install it into a previously working unit. Then see if the disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery software. Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

You should be doing a bit of background work first.

1) Any visible damage ? (Burned circuit board.)
It's pretty hard to inspect in 2013, since they started
turning the component-side-in on the PCBs, so you cannot
inspect the chip part numbers. This is only an option
on ancient drives.

2) Does the drive spin up ? A failed motor makes a quick
fix less likely.

3) Do you hear a repetitive "click-clunk" ?
The heads could be damaged, and unable to find "track -1".
The controller has minimal boot data, and track -1 contains
more firmware, as well as data structures. If you do a
firmware upgrade, that could be stored on track -1.

4) Some drives have a TTL level serial header. But
documentation of the cryptic commands is missing.
At least one Seagate model, can be recovered by
using such an interface.

5) If the drive model has a known failure mode,
doing a Google on it may uncover an answer.

Removing the platter isn't that easy. The head assembly,
there is a head pressing against the top and bottom of
each platter. Also, the platters need to maintain
concentricity around the motor hub. I don't know
if the mechanical tolerances are good enough, to allow
transplanting without aligning things.

To make a clean room, you need a source of pressurized
air (vacuum cleaner motor), plus a hepafilter. That
way, you have a source of filtered air, blowing across
your project area. The selection of materials to make
a glove box, is also an issue, as some materials
have previously collected dust on their surface (which
is released as your air flows over it).

Some people use the "refrigerator method" for recovering
hard drives, but that assumes a limited range of
failure options. You would not be recovering
a drive with a burned motor controller IC for
example, by using the fridge method.

Some users attempt to swap controller PCBs, which
covers controller failure. But even then, you have to
get an exact substitute.

Paul

Davej galt_57 hotmail.com wrote:

A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to
the personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send
it anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur
attempt at data recovery for her? I could try to pick up a
working HD of exactly the same model on Ebay. I could assemble a
miniature "clean room" out of clear plastic sheeting and duct
tape. I understand the basic concept is to remove the platter
and install it into a previously working unit. Then see if the
disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery software.
Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

I doubt it, but... One way biologists use to keep the air clean in
their workspace is with a flow of air. Not that it would work, but
you could use a good air filter and have it blowing towards your work
area.

On Saturday, November 30, 2013 1:26:40 PM UTC-6, Paul wrote:
[...]
Some users attempt to swap controller PCBs, which
covers controller failure. But even then, you have to
get an exact substitute.


Thanks. When I receive the disk in a few days I will attempt to evaluate it. Maybe I can find a cheap dead drive of this model for a trial disassembly.

On 11/30/2013 10:47 AM, Davej wrote:
A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the
personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it
anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt
at data recovery for her?

If you can't fix the drive, you could always bring a camera over and
offer to retake her lost photographs. ;-

Jon

On Sat, 30 Nov 2013, Davej wrote:

A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the
personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it anywhere.
I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt at data
recovery for her? I could try to pick up a working HD of exactly the
same model on Ebay. I could assemble a miniature "clean room" out of
clear plastic sheeting and duct tape. I understand the basic concept is
to remove the platter and install it into a previously working unit.
Then see if the disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery
software. Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

Much of the mythology of "hard drive salvaging" dates from an earlier
time.

I have no idea if anyone was really successful, but in the days of 40meg
drives, not only were things a lot less critical because the data wasn't
so dense, but thc computer kept track of the bad sectors.

When IDE drives came along (and whatever followed), suddenly it wasn't
just a matter of needing the same board, for those talking about a board
transplant, but since the board kept track of the bad sectors, the eeprom
or whatever of a replacement board wouldn't match the eeprom of the old
board, and hence you know longer had the information for the locked out
sectors.

Yet the concept of swapping boards remains, people give thought to it, but
not enough, which then keeps the idea in public view, for others to give
consideration too.

And the notion of swapping platters, that too perhaps might have worked
long enough to retrieve data of a "bad drive", though I don't recall
hearing about any "amateur" being successful. But again, the density of a
drive used to be quite low, giving more room for errors. Just look at
older drives, they often had multiple platters for a lot less data, and
the larger drives I've taken apart in recent years are down to one
platter; a big difference in data density, and besides the fact that the
newer drives are so much bigger.

People talk about swapping platters, but nobody seems to say much about
how to align the platters. Or, the contrarians bring it up, but nobody
reports back success.

The thing about professional data recovery is that they do it
professionally. They have the tools, they have the knowledge, they have
the experienc. And someone is paying really good money to have the data
recovered. That's a far cry from someone thinking about doing it at home.

Michael

On Saturday, November 30, 2013 6:59:50 PM UTC-6, Jon Danniken wrote:
On 11/30/2013 10:47 AM, Davej wrote:

A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the
personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it
anywhere. I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt
at data recovery for her?

If you can't fix the drive, you could always bring a camera over and
offer to retake her lost photographs. ;-


I think the problem is that she is from the Middle-East and one bad photo could get your head chopped off by some insanely religious distant-relative

On Sun, 1 Dec 2013 22:06:46 -0800 (PST), Davej
wrote:



I think
the problem is that she is from the Middle-East and one bad photo
could get your head chopped off by some insanely religious
distant-relative

-
The HD might be removed and some thought given for disposal prior to
replacement with a new unit. Seems that data backed up might be more
integral to correctly handling a PC, than a broad-sweeping fear in any
sense consequent manifest for that ineptitude. Least to mention
expense involved with data recovery services, such as they are, with
proper equipment, means and knowledge in dealing with delicate inner
operations among potentials involving reconstructing a HD.

Famous last words, eh -- being perfectly aware that being a little on
the spare side these days, myself, with some 1st generation media not
duplicated from one, and only one working HD, may not be as efficient
as might be supposed (in the case of what exactly might I lose were
one of my "storage" drive to fail). Something of a quandary to me in
this dimension of a semi-affordable T-byte realm of today's
technological advancements. I'm not entirely sure I want to rack up,
say, five- a thousand-dollar to an array for duplicating every HD I
presently own.

On Sun, 1 Dec 2013 09:53:58 -0500, Michael Black wrote:

On Sat, 30 Nov 2013, Davej wrote:

A friend has a WD Passport 160GB drive which has died. Due to the
personal nature of the contents she is not willing to send it anywhere.
I am curious if I should offer to make an amateur attempt at data
recovery for her? I could try to pick up a working HD of exactly the
same model on Ebay. I could assemble a miniature "clean room" out of
clear plastic sheeting and duct tape. I understand the basic concept is
to remove the platter and install it into a previously working unit.
Then see if the disk can be accessed and if so run some data recovery
software. Would I have even a 10% chance of any success? Thanks.

Much of the mythology of "hard drive salvaging" dates from an earlier
time.

I have no idea if anyone was really successful, but in the days of 40meg
drives, not only were things a lot less critical because the data wasn't
so dense, but thc computer kept track of the bad sectors.

When IDE drives came along (and whatever followed), suddenly it wasn't
just a matter of needing the same board, for those talking about a board
transplant, but since the board kept track of the bad sectors, the eeprom
or whatever of a replacement board wouldn't match the eeprom of the old
board, and hence you know longer had the information for the locked out
sectors.

Yet the concept of swapping boards remains, people give thought to it, but
not enough, which then keeps the idea in public view, for others to give
consideration too.

It worked for me, the one time I did it (swapping PCB - exact same drive model
and era)

Customer was rather happy :O)
--