Swap Hard Disk Drive Platters

This is an article regarding swapping hard drive platters. This is not a procedure for the technically inept or faint hearted. The following carries no guarantees, and definitely voids and nullifies any existing warranty. It may be best to try swapping the controller board before going to a platter swap. This is less destructive, and you require an identical drive for either process anyway.

Steps

  1. Know that this is only a last resort. You have tried everything else, your data is not extremely important, and/or your cash flow restricts the use of a professional service.
  2. Set up a clean work environment. You can not make a super clean environment at home but use some common sense, and do the best you can. Keep air flow to a minimum.
  3. Assemble and layout your tools.
  4. Use powder-free latex gloves.
  5. Ground yourself! If you don't know what is, or how to do it, ask Google.
  6. Remove the cover of your dead drive. If the cover doesn’t just lift off, look for more screws! There are screws under labels.
  7. Once the cover is off, inspect the platters. If they are scratched, scorched, warped, or otherwise damaged, stop you are done!
  8. Set the cover back on - if the platters are physically damaged chances are you will not be able to recover any data. You can still try if you like.
  9. Purchase a new HDD with the same model number and firmware version.
  10. Test the new HDD. Make sure you can read and write data to and from it.
  11. Remove the cover from your donor HDD.
  12. Remove the platters from the donor HDD. This is your chance to learn how they are assembled, if you slip and damage parts you can get a new donor. NOTE: if you are dealing with multiple platters they cannot be removed without the proper equipment, because misalignment of the platters will destroy any chance of recovering data. You need a platter removal tool. The next steps are only if you are dealing with a single platter.
  13. Remove the platter from your dead HDD.
  14. Reassemble the donor drive with dead HDD’s platters inside (make sure all the platters are aligned in the same way towards each other as they were in the old drive).
  15. Mount the donor drive.
  16. Quickly copy your data. You might only get one or two chances to read from the HDD. It might make some horrible noises.
  17. Unmount the HDD and discard it. Continued use of the HDD is ill-advised.



Tips

  • To remove the platters you might have to remove the head assembly.
  • Use the right tools!
  • When swapping the platters be very careful with the head! Make sure the head is parked before you attempt to remove the platters.
  • This procedure is not for logically erased data. This procedure is for physically inoperable drives with intact data.
  • HDD = hard disk drive
  • Do your homework. Look at photos of the internals of a hard disk drive before you open one up.
  • Hard Drive PCB online Shop: http://www.HDDZone.com (provides Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, western digital and IBM/Hitachi pcb boards.)
  • Before going for platter removal, try freezing the HDD (in an airtight container) and attempting to create a disk image using a tool like DD_Rescue (http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html). Sometimes, freezing the HDD will contract bearings enough to get a last read out of the HDD. Freezing the hard drive can cause condensation on the platters which can lead to the platters being damaged by the heads when the HDD drive is powered

Warnings

  • Hard Drives are assembled in hermetically-sealed clean rooms, free of any dust. A single speck of foreign material introduced onto a platter will destroy the drive most of the time. If this does happen, try a can of air and spray it off, but do not wipe or use chemicals.
  • This will void any existing warranty.
  • In most cases, this will also void your ENTIRE computers warranty, read the warranty very carefully

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