I like that you’re honest. Most data recovery service dudes will act as if opening your hard drive will cause permanent damage just so you can call them for help and pay up.

Fascinating to see how these devices work. They are more fragile than I thought. My WD drive is well out of warranty. I think I will crack open the case and see if the platters are intact since I have no idea what caused my drive failure. Thanks for the tech lesson!

the disk is now history, and you are the best history teacher ever. Thanks dude.

It is possible to recover data from a hard drive with this type of damage. You won't get information that is on the damaged part... but all other areas are recoverable. You just have to have data recovery software that will ignore the read error that you will get when it gets to the end of the drive... Basically, since the heads are damaged, they would be replaced... You will see what you can get before the new ones get damaged, replace the heads again, and start reading again... As long as you get a set of heads that survive going over the damaged area.. you'll get everything on the inner part of the drive that isn't damaged. Which from your video is about 90%-95% of the data. The alignment issues you are talking about are with the platters being aligned with each other. When you replace the heads, you use paper to keep them from crashing on each other... you then remove the paper seperaters as you seat the heads on the HDD platters.

This is so satisfying, i would watch this before going to bed.

Excellent video of what to do, and what NOT to do if attempting this type of repair.

I am sorry it couldn' t be repaired, but thank you for showing us the internal mechanics of the hard drive! That was really interesting!

The best explanation for this process I have seen so far!👍👍

So the noise coming from my computer is where I thought it was. Thanks for showing us this video.

Thank you for the extensive video. It was indeed informative and fascinating.

THank you so much man! I don't know yet if this will work for me, but thanks for explaining what are REALLY the risks to open the HD... vs almost all experts as you said who just say "no ! don't try !!!! you gonna lose all!!"

I am watching the third video of your hdd help and I am asking my self why I didn't open any. Thank you for inspiration and for lot of helpful informations! :)

Thanks for this vid. Gives me a better understanding of harddisks.

How cool was to watch this vid... made with patience, care and taking us with you in the curiosity of checking every single piece... thank you for the trip, congrats for a great vid!

The worked for me after two pc shops refused to open the unreadable hard drive. as soon as I opened the case and saw it wasn't in a parked position I figured it was stuck and rotated counterclockwise the disc while dragging the reader head back to parked position and that fixed it. Thanks for sharing!

Amazing info! Thank you very much! I have a ~7 yr old Seagate Barracuda 360GB hard disk, that fell sick few months ago (dunno how, never fell down or something). Luckily, i got a new WD 1TB on time and transferred 98% data safely to the new hdd. I was not able to run it for more than 20-30 mins (temps going 45C+ then BSOD) till 2 days ago when i discovered that it is making one clicking sound then fails to be detected at startup. I just backed up my data before the hdd died totally.

Appreciate what you took time to show us.

Nice video with good explanation delivered with patience. I liked everything but liked most the bit where you made effort to improve camera focus so the heads became clearly visible.

very good information. i am a newbie and had no idea why my drive was making that exact noise

Very Informative....Thanks for your time !

Actually, the read heads are somewhat easy to replace. They have sort of a springy head so the reader can be repelled by the individual magnetic pulls. That springiness also allows for flexibility between platter thicknesses. and that thing about the formatting, all read heads I've seen are the same, they all same amount of turns in the copper coil, and no chip. This means the only electronics in it is the ribbon wire, coil, and heads. The chip that controls the movement is either on a board inside the enclosure, or on the outer board. To make a long story short, just unplug the reader, unscrew the plastic guide thing that keeps the heads from going too far from the platter, remove the top neodymium magnet, and remove the read heads. Installation: Unless you plan to save the platters, you don't have to worry about scratching them when removing the heads, just don't let it touch the ones in the new drive. To install them, just do the same thing to remove the damaged heads, then slide the new ones into the plastic guide and screw it down and it should be good to go. Just don't forget to put the magnet back and plug the read head in to the board. Edit: Nvm, I guess there's more to it then that: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gJ-AZ7iSybjIfnU.html Well, I was mostly right.

most drives can be forced to read specific tracks with specialized interfaces and software, usually provided thru the manufacturer. this can allow retrieval of partial data from non damaged areas, but only if the heads are undamaged. if heads are non functional, some services have success by actually removing the disc platters and mounting them into a new case with good heads, much like a manufacturing process. inspection at microscope levels to determine suitability is essential before choosing what to do, as even minute surface defects will ruin subsequent heads that attempt access to those areas. most recover is a multistep process, first to enable reliable mechanical operation, then read as much data into an external image file, and finally parse the recovered image file for data structure and useable data. with many systems, the fragmentation of files is extensive and often very time consuming makingit difficult to recover individual consecutive data (however, even partial data can be useful)

After 6 days of scanning hdd wd red 2tb that fell of the table now I hear clicking noise... gonna buy new one to try this. Thank you

Thank you so much, absolutely fascinating, . Now I can reasonably know what the hard drive on my laptop would have looked like after it crashed some years ago. That too clicked. Cheers

I really like the way you demonstrate, I subscribed to your channel right away..

I recently discovered your channel to see if I could possible save what I thought was a stuck head on my 2TB HDD and I was confident in opening the drive and unjamming the heads until I found out that all three of my platters had 3-5 rings of very deep scratches...moral of the story: remove your HDDs before transporting a PC

It's always interesting to know the expert's opinion.

Yes true. Some small percentage of the data is gone, but chances are you can restore most of it in a lab. At least 80%.

Thanks for posting. Just for folks to be aware, if you intend to open a HDD, you need to do it in a clean environment. Airborne dust is sufficient to cause problems when it settles on the platter. Finger prints on the platter are a disaster. Cover your hair and clothing, wear neoprene (or touch sensitive) gloves. Generally parts (such as heads) are not interchangeable. If there is annular scoring as in this example, other tracks/ sectors may be readable. If he scoring is a spiral, that crosses all data tracks and renders the drive scrap metal. You need good light and the steady hands of a surgeon. :) :)

you have to use a high contrast background to help your camera focus something black and white for instance with crisp edges

The Platters make wonderful wind chimes

I have taken the lid off of a working hard drive and used it that way. It will work. Probably not very long. But I was able to read files etc. Not recommended for data recovery, but fun to see it work.

At least you can get the very strong magnets! I have many of them myself!!!

Informative video.. Good job.. Keep it up and continue for learners.. Thanks.. Jzakallah..

Wow. This is very informing. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Learned something from you :D

thanks for this video, man. very helpful.

Learning a lot from yours in particular, thank you ^_^

after a head crash, I would expect the head(s) to be "junk", so I would not expect them to work, even on undamaged parts of the disk; in the old days, with ferromagnetic coating, one could easily see the "furrow" that was ploughed by the head, and examining the head would also show the magnetic material clogging and/or having scratched up the head(s); good explanation, great video! BTW, I don't think you have to align "bits" on the surfaces, they would automagically align when the disks are reformatted (deep, including timing tracks); a bigger problem IMO would be (re)balancing the disks on the spindle, to avoid "wobble" when they turn at high speed? probably the falling over caused ALL of the "top" heads to "bounce" off the surface, and start pushing up material

That grinding noise made me make a squished face!

I always save the magnets. they are super strong :)

An excellent tutorial of how to destroy a hard disk that still was recoverable.

thank you for nice show

Thank you for such an information

Yep, the MyBooks do tend to get knocked over and this is a great video to describe what happens inside them when this happens. I much prefer the 2.5" externals anyway.

I liked this tear down!!!

Very educational, thank you.

Great job on the video! You explained this very well thank you!

My several LaCie d2 / Quadras have NEVER fallen over! The base plate foot thing is wider than the drive housing! Drives always kept in a safe environment! Since 2007 < J.C.

my drive had this same damage. i sent it to data recovery and are able to recovered most of my data.

The heads look like a great keychain holder once its out.

You should put the screw on the pivot of the moving arm that support the heads.

Yep we are screwed great way to put it man!!

Very interesting and detailed. Thank you.

thank you for advice and this video

12:34 you need to pull out that stopper (shape like a small black rod between the disk and the yellow stuff) so that the reader can pull out.

I put HD magnets on the bottom of my engine oil filter to catch any metal particles if any are floating around.

the reason its scraping or making that sound when you're turning the disk with it powered off and the head is on the disk, is that when its powered up the air creates a path inbetween the head and the disk which makes it kind of float. kinda like an air hockey table.

Great video ! I had to open my disc and the good news is that the plate seems to be ok but unfortunately i saw one small piece of the heads, as you have said i do not believe it will be possible to replace the heads to read the plates, but what do i need to do to recover mi data? do I have to remove the plates and put them on another same model drive? is there any other way? thanks in advance.

I just want to make a little correction that HDD is a western digital caviar green.They are used in USB devices and regular PC's i have one of these Hard drives.

You are funny! I liked that!😁

what size torx was used to remove the platter ring at 10:37 on...i can seem to find on in my kit that fits?( same WD 500 gig drive it appears)

"This is sandpaper..." hahaha nice word to describe it.

Extremely educational

Buff the damage out with a dremel or successively finer grades of wet'n'dry.

Noticed the head and players, question would it be possible to replace ( the same) players upside down as it appears only one side damaged??????

what have i to do if my hard drive is clicking and when it clicks the Pc didn't finds it?.... please help me my hard drive is a toshiba 720gb

This vid is so satisfying

I watched a guy do it with scotch taping the drives together as he moved them over to the new drive and he got it to work.

Thanks for sharing - although I am late to the party. I have a the Western Digital Caviar Green Power 500GB External Hard Disk Drive": It crashed in the year 2525 [ha got carried away in reference to a song] - it actually crashed in 2015! A local shop tech told me that the only way I could recover my data is by obtaining a identical enclosure controller board to read the data? I still have my WD 500GB external hard - I removed the case, but I didn't disassemble the drive itself. I guess I could give it a try again because my toolbox has improved - I own a Thermaltake - BlacX Duet Hard Drive Enclosure Docking Station - Black. any advice?

Please talk about the tools used so we can do this ourselves.

A WD5000AAKS came in a Fantom external harddrive I purchased. Will I be able to get the data off it as a bare drive connected to a USB to SATA adaptor without the electronics of Fantom enclosure?

Amazing fix THANKS!

Not sure if platter replacement is completely impossible, hard drive always uses one head at once and i guess it compensates misalignment and eccentricity a little during rotation. But it's just my guess. I believe tracks are too dense to be able to make hard drive perfect mechanically.

thank you for this work

Surely a head replacement would have helped get some data off the disc though? The head had scratched the disc yes so that data is gone obviously. However the head was also visibly damaged so replacing it (assuming the damage isn't on an important part of initialisation) should surely work in recovering some data? Or does any scratch to any part of any disc make it completely unreadable ?

exactly what I needed!

8:04 sound like an old telephone ringing. Those turnable dials

Informative Thanks

At 8:26 he says spinning it "Counter Clockwise" while he is spinning it Clockwise

To take the heads arm out you have to remove the little rubber tube that prevents the head arm to move out of the heads rest (yellowish teflon peace).

Enjoyed watching it taken apart but it appeared to me that you could still retrieve a large part of the data that wasn't scratched. Isn't the large unscratched sections still recorded data? Or is the only data on the disc the smaller outer section from where the scratch occured? I'm just curious if there is a way to recover SOME or the undamaged data, and if not, should we hang on to our platters or hard drives incase technology comes up with a way to do so. Thanks for the learning lesson on damage and disassembly.

I also have a wd 1tb that felt( 50 60 cm ) and works but it was in box and buble rap allso hit lateral as i was trying to stop it whith my leg from hiting the flor side into a foset filed bag

thank you for the video

I had the same problem with my 1.2TB seagate. I did lose stuff, but you just have to move on. I had two rings like that, one on the outside, and one in the inside.

What size screws are those?. I have a clicking external seagate I want to take a look at.

If we put that platter to opposit side with a new key will hard disk work??

You can't "force" the drive into the read position! Data recovery centres CAN recover data from such drives and it is likely they could have recovered the data off this drive, prior to dismantling.(obviously there will be some data that cannot be recovered where the heads have crashed into the platter). It does depend on the ability to use the original head (or if they can install new r/w heads). Recovery centres have specialised software to step the heads and control which track is read. The data DOES NOT have to align vertically between platters. There is some form of alignment based purely on the relationship between the heads and how they are mounted on the drive, but this has nothing to do with VERTICAL data alignment. Today's high capacity drives (usually) have logical allocations. This means the drive to the "end user" may be described for example as 2048 tracks and two r/w heads, while in practice, the physical device may have hardware that uses two platters and four heads. The computer requests the drive to write on track 1056, but the hard drive "logically" locates the appropriate track that "represents" track number 1056. This track could be on the second platter, read and written by head three. The computer does not need to know this logical allocation, this is handled by the embedded software on the hard drive.

I have a wd 800 that clicks on start . Can it be fixet ? ( Probably i m guessing mecanical shock made it so )

The hard drive motor can be used as a stationary grinder. Done that several times.

what if you turn the disk upside down and reassembly it, could it read the data?

"you are screwed" - LMAO

nice video, i have a question, to start i am not new and computers and setting up systems, the new system i set up has 1 4tb, 1 6tb, (1 8tb 3 10tb,helium filled ) i get a sound from one don't know which one it sound is like ( b...b...b...b ..b) like the drives head is moving, but no disk activity as for moving files, all drives smart look good not bug or faults, only as the case is on the desk i hear this or i would never as in the bast the case is on the floor. would this be a normal sound and is there a web page i can go to that have a list of hard drive sounds.

well nice for you video thank you so much

Nice job guys, do I have got questions. Will it work if I swap the head using the same model, size, first 3 digits of serial number and same firmware version? If it will work, can I use hddsuperclone to clone the hard drive or I still have to use PC3000??

Good job!

The heads were probably destroyed when it scratched the drive. The heads would servo would just search across the media for a reference point - but with no heads, that was impossible. With a replaced head set, you could have possibly gotten some data. If you magnified 80k x you'd still be unable to see the actual head. What you zoomed in on were probably like pre-amps that the heads use to amplify the electron state. NO CHANCE those heads could work once they've hit each other.

Can you do a video on how to fix dimmed screen display?

Very interesting! Great job.

Nice cleanroom