Looking for some help from people much smarter than me. A few years ago my laptop got dropped and the hard drive died causing us to lose a lot of pictures.
Last week I was playing with it and was occasionally able to get the computer to recognize it but was still not able to actually get into any files on it.
Is it possible to buy an identical 320GB drive and swap the physical disk inside the hdd. Does it have to be identical make and size? I know I will likely have issues with dust and stuff but if there is any chance I could get those pictures back I will give it a shot.
Any advice is appreciated. If you do this for a living feel free to let me know what you would charge to do a disk swap or some other type of recovery.
It's not something you want to tackle on your own. If you want to pay someone, I have used restoringdata.com a few times and they were very good. It will cost around $800-$1000. The only thing you can try on your own is to get an identical drive and swap the logic board, but since you dropped it that probably isn't the issue. Plugging the drive in can make things worse if the drive head is touching the platter.
What will replacing the platter do? That's the part that has your data! Or do you want to put the platter in a new drive? I strongly suggest you take an old laptop drive apart to see what you are getting into. Removing the heads so you can access the platter is difficult in itself, without damaging anything. Any dust could be an issue as well.
This is super dangerous and can easily cause way more damage than already exists. You'll need to build a very effective clean room through various methods including running a hot shower to get steam to trap dust and bring it to the ground.
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Yup, if you do this, expect ti to be a last resort rescue. Don't expect to be able to have the pro's fix it after. I understand the desire to do some stuff yourself, I do everything I possibly can. But I wouldn't risk this for something I cared about.
I have also read that you need to have the same logic board version(which can be hard to get info for from online shops) and have the same firmware installed.
In theory it can be done. In practice I would think the average person who would attempt this will destroy the drive 99 out of 100 times.
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I agree with all of you and realize that this is a last ditch effort. I had already opened the drive to see if something was loose inside and I believe the drive head was touching the platter so I am pretty sure that the damage is already done.
My plan is to buy an identical size/make of drive (picking it up tonight), transplant the platter into a known working drive, then transplant the logic/circuit board as it will ensure no firmware issues or logic board differences.
Since 100% of people here are saying don't do it I am sure that I will fall into the 99/100 that will fail but it would be pretty cool if it worked.
Well if you have already opened it...first and easiest thing to try is gently move the head off the platter while spinning the platter counter clockwise. Park the head, seal it up and see if it works. I've had luck with that once before.
One of the biggest problems with your plan is, and it depends on the drive, the head arm does not clear the platters even when parked. If it is a multi platter drive you have to remove the head arm first, while not contacting the platters.
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Oh, also have some drive mirroring software ready to go and do a mirror copy. Then you don't have to worry as much about read errors, which windows likes ot choke on. You probably won't have a lot of time to monkey around, one good continuous copy is your best way to go.
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Hard drive disk swap advice
