3 ms·

In the older days some of these disks had a discrete rom for this, but recently they have been integrated into a larger chip. It seems that if you have the rew

by kw71 12y ago

In the older days some of these disks had a discrete rom for this, but recently they have been integrated into a larger chip. It seems that if you have the rework skills, you can transfer the chip with integrated memory to the new board. It's certainly gross when the spindle motor driver on one of these boards explodes. However if you take the lid off a WD drive, the head arm pivot goes out of alignment, since it is secured in place by one of the lid screws. So, if you have to swap internal parts for data recovery, you should own or make a jig to hold the top of the pivot and make fine adjustments, or you will never be successful. Depending on your skills, this may present more difficulty than reworking a board for a swap. Luckily I have never had to try a DIY data recovery.

thaumaturgy 12y ago
> However if you take the lid off a WD drive, the head arm pivot goes out of alignment, since it is secured in place by one of the lid screws. Oh god, how did I forget about that? Yeah, the guys on hddguru had things to say about that a few years back. A few folks made some really good side money making a tool specifically for realigning the heads on those WD drives. I used to do the very occasional DIY data recovery for people that had the need but not the money for a professional recovery. My last one was well over 5 years ago, WD and the others made it impossible for people like me to do it anymore. (We still can do recoveries on failing drives under very limited circumstances using a custom server/software we patched together.) You really have to pay for expensive yearly training and piles of equipment to do data recoveries now.
- userbinator 12y ago
  The hddguru article was most memorable for this picture: http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/fig_25.jpg http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-... Edit: article itself is here if you're curious about the context of that picture: http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/ http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-...

by kw71 12y ago

thaumaturgy 12y ago

> However if you take the lid off a WD drive, the head arm pivot goes out of alignment, since it is secured in place by one of the lid screws. Oh god, how did I forget about that? Yeah, the guys on hddguru had things to say about that a few years back. A few folks made some really good side money making a tool specifically for realigning the heads on those WD drives. I used to do the very occasional DIY data recovery for people that had the need but not the money for a professional recovery. My last one was well over 5 years ago, WD and the others made it impossible for people like me to do it anymore. (We still can do recoveries on failing drives under very limited circumstances using a custom server/software we patched together.) You really have to pay for expensive yearly training and piles of equipment to do data recoveries now.

userbinator 12y ago
The hddguru article was most memorable for this picture: http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/fig_25.jpg http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-... Edit: article itself is here if you're curious about the context of that picture: http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-and-A/ http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17-Changing-headstack-Q-...