Western Digital HDD Mechanical Failiar

[thedjmixman]

I have an 80 GB HDD which is suffering! I would like to know if any of you know the cause of this, and possibly the remedy.

The platter at the top of the HD seems unmarked, so it doesnt look like their is any damage caused by the head, but the head continually crashes in to the centre of the disk. It is very noisy, and obviously, I cannot read any data from it. The head seems to swing from the centre of the platter, in to the spindle repeatedly.

Anyone seen this problem before?
Many thanks,
thedjmixman

 

[Rufusman]

The original problem may have been that the circuit board (PCB) was damaged. A swap of the board with the same make, model and firmware may have recovered your data.

The unfortunate thing is that you sound like you have opened the drive. That is not a good thing. Drives should only be opened under very controlled environments (like a class 100 clean room) as a smoke particle is larger than the space between your drive head and the platter, and even something so small can cause a head crash.

Assuming that you have not opened it, we can go back to the original problem and see if you can get anything back. what you will need is a drive that is of the same make, model and firmware of the drive you have. You will need a WD800*B-*****. all of these letters and numbers need to be the same as your model if you are to have the best chance of getting the data back. You will then need to swap the boards.

You must only do this if you are confident that you know what you are doing. If you are not there are companies that may be able to help. If you are in australia, go to

http://www.pcbsearch.com.au.

They charge a fee for the work, but will more than likely have a drive for that model.

This may work, if it was a PCB problem, but there are no guarantees.

Good luck