Hard drive repair

I bought a WD MyBook external 500Gb drive about five months ago and the transport has gone out on it already. I'd ditch it but I need the data on the discs.
Here's my question:
Since I've never done it, I'm wondering do I need to get the same hard drive enclosure to move the discs to?

It's an SATA drive. and I'll get another SATA, but is there any problem with going out and buying say a 250Gb Caviar and taking it apart to put my discs in it or is there some hardware signing that will prevent it from reading more than 250Gb?

Shit, I don't know how safe that really is. When it comes to things like that, they're pretty sensitive, and one tiny wrong move and your shit is gone. Might be better to get a professional company to do it for you, unless you're confident of what you're about to do, and have a decent guide telling you how to do it in front of you.

If you are fairly confident in your abilities, I would recommend reading this guide and having at hand while you work. It's pretty decent, not to mention there aren't a ton of guides out there for this.


http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/computer-hardware-58/2490-guide-open-hard-drive-surgery.html



Oh, I should also answer your real question at hand...

I'm not sure it's going to be a great idea to change the capacity like that. As far as I know, the only thing different between the hard drives would be the heads, and the capacity they can hold. If you were to change the heads, theoretically, it shouldn't be a problem, but make sure everything else is identical.

first one is SATA...second should be SATA
first one at 10,000RPM...second should be 10,000RPM
etc.

The more alike the two drives are, the better the chances of the switch being successful.

Quote:

Originally posted by DaCowboyinAZ

I bought a WD MyBook external 500Gb drive about five months ago and the transport has gone out on it already. I'd ditch it but I need the data on the discs.
Here's my question:
Since I've never done it, I'm wondering do I need to get the same hard drive enclosure to move the discs to?

It's an SATA drive. and I'll get another SATA, but is there any problem with going out and buying say a 250Gb Caviar and taking it apart to put my discs in it or is there some hardware signing that will prevent it from reading more than 250Gb?

Uh yeah, that is a pretty good way to instantly kill your drive and void all the warranties.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kanzen

...

Uh yeah, that is a pretty good way to instantly kill your drive and void all the warranties.

I was going to say the same thing about the warranty, but everyone always gets pissy when I say things like that, so I decided to just skip that altogether.

At this point, who cares about the warranty. You just want to get your data back, so do it - carefully, or have a repair shop do it for you.

So what were the results? Have you tried anything out yet?

Warranty is the last thing I'm concerned about. This drive was bought (brand new) in May of 2009. It was just over five months old when the transport went. Warranty on it was only 90 days so it was out of warranty and I was out of luck. If I buy a new WD Caviar for $59.00 at Best Buy, I could give a flip less about voiding the warranty bu taking it apart to swap out platters.

I've checked with several "recovery" companies and they want anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000 (U.S.) to "attempt a recovery" with NO GUARANTEE they can do it.

I have well over $70,000 worth of music and videos on these shiny little platters. I know that about 400 songs have been corrupted, and I'll just have to live with that. But there is no way in hell I'm going to hand the drive and $1500 (or worse yet $10000) to someone and then have them tell me they couldn't do anything with it, but "thanks for the ten grand, sucker".

If I can buy a new WD Caviar drive for $59 and manage to recover 98% of my data, I'll do it myself, but if I can't, I'm no worse off than I was. 74,000+ songs, 4800+ audiobooks, and 1200+ videos will be lost forever and I'll just have to live without them.

I had the same drive, and I plugged it in one day and it wouldn't power up. So I took it apart and slid it into my desktop and it worked fine, it was pretty fantastic.

I know the situations are different, I just felt like telling a heartwarming story of how I got all my porn and music back.

OK so I'm pretty sure this is my first post here - as usually I just lurk, but I thought since this might actually fall into something I know ( besides synthetic organic chem ) I would chime in.
-IF warranty is not a concern.
- The two drives should be ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL - if you are dead set on swapping the drives. This gives you your greatest probability of success. : as stated above.
- However western dig has a whole bunch of back up and restore tools for dead or dying hard drives. It allows the drive to spin at a slower speed and although the data transfer rate is usually shit - you can pull everything off the drive this way if you know what your doing.
- BART PE is a great program to try as well although It has an unusually high learning curve and can toast your system just as easily as fix it. However since your drive is already a large coaster - it too is worth downloading - looking at and learning from and attempting that their.

- Final option before gutting and swapping is - IF you can prove you work for a government agency (or anyone you can kinda use for this ) Western Dig and a few companies have a complimentary data recovery program for government employees. - I eneded up finding this out when one of my 40 gig WD drives died ( - 40 was avg at that time - so yea its been a while ).

IF swapping - CLEAN area first - dust off everything and have lots of compressed / canned air handy. WITH OUT any of that lemon or smell good stuff in it.

Good luck
- sorry about the long reply

So have you had any luck with the repair yet?

I would find out what the cost of retreiving the data is compared to the DIY.

Once you open the case to dust, lint etc and it gets between the head and the platters you are fucked.

There are cheaper ways of recovering your tunes.

I get the new drive next Wednesday (12/09/09) and I'll probably be tearing it down by week's end. BestBuy is having a hell of a sale next week, and I have family working at the nearby store, so I get the (indirect) employee discount as well. I will be out the door for less than $40.00. I've done a thorough clean up of my desk area and it's pretty much dust free right now. I opened the old drive, and the transport is frozen so data recovery from within is definitely out of the question. I loosened all if the internal bolts so this one is ready to come out. It takes about ten minutes with the right tools to take of these down to just parts.