Fallen HDD, not spin up anymore, What can I do?

Nerik · 01-26-2009, 07:22 AM

Hi boys and girls.

I have (...or had?...) a Samsung SpinPoint F Serie (HD753LJ), 750Go.

Last night, I dropped it like a fu***ng bast***, and obviously, it does not work anymore...

The spindle motor seems to be gripped: the hard drive tries to spin up, fails and retries 2 or 3 times.

I have recorded the noise the hard drive produces. You can listen it by downloading the attachement or at this URL: HDD noises record (the first *TIC* is just the power switch).

In your opinion, what is the problem? Stuck heads? Dead spindle motor? Is it unrecoverable?

**raptor_pa** · 01-26-2009, 07:28 AM

I would say spindle motor, would require a platter swap into a donor drive in a clean room...

Nerik · 01-26-2009, 07:54 AM

Is there a cheap way to do it? Or by myself?

I just want to retrieve some data, I'll obviously buy a new drive.

**raptor_pa** · 01-26-2009, 08:02 AM

There is no cheap way to do a platter swap, the minimum tools to do the job would cost you $600 USD. Special tools are required to grip the platters and get them out all together. Removing the heads without damaging the platters takes a lot of practice and other tools. You also will have to purchase a drive that matches ALL the parameters of your patient drive for the donor. You might get away without the clean room by using canned air to blow off the platters and assembly before reassembly. I do clean room recoveries professionally. I practice on non critical drives every chance I get just so I can see different drive configurations. When I first started I probably killed 15 or 20 drives before I got my first success. Not the kind of thing you want to try at home if your data is critical. It also might not even be recoverable, if the drop also caused any head damage, you could have scarred the platters every time you tried to spin it up, effectively scrubbbibg the data off the platters surface.

01-26-2009, 07:28 AM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,792 OS: XP	Re: Fallen HDD, not spin up anymore, What can I do? I would say spindle motor, would require a platter swap into a donor drive in a clean room... __________________

01-26-2009, 07:54 AM	#3 (permalink)
Nerik Registered User Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 2 OS: Mac OS X 10.5.6 (Intel)	Re: Fallen HDD, not spin up anymore, What can I do? Is there a cheap way to do it? Or by myself? I just want to retrieve some data, I'll obviously buy a new drive.

01-26-2009, 08:02 AM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,792 OS: XP	Re: Fallen HDD, not spin up anymore, What can I do? There is no cheap way to do a platter swap, the minimum tools to do the job would cost you $600 USD. Special tools are required to grip the platters and get them out all together. Removing the heads without damaging the platters takes a lot of practice and other tools. You also will have to purchase a drive that matches ALL the parameters of your patient drive for the donor. You might get away without the clean room by using canned air to blow off the platters and assembly before reassembly. I do clean room recoveries professionally. I practice on non critical drives every chance I get just so I can see different drive configurations. When I first started I probably killed 15 or 20 drives before I got my first success. Not the kind of thing you want to try at home if your data is critical. It also might not even be recoverable, if the drop also caused any head damage, you could have scarred the platters every time you tried to spin it up, effectively scrubbbibg the data off the platters surface. __________________