Anyone here every switched the plates on a HD?

Well, about a year ago, Apple computer fried my hard drive. Its a long boring story...

I pulled the drive and replaced it. I have the old drive sitting in my storage area. I would love to get the information OFF the drive, but I don't need it badly enough to pay $500 to some data recovery service.

The drive has a physical problem. It clunks and whirs and sounds like the bearings are out of whack. I have tried every kind of software fix you can imagine. I even tried the old "hard drive in the freezer" fix to no avail.

As a last ditch effort I picked up an identical drive cheap on ebay. I have heard that you can switch out the plates and possibly recover data in that way.

I am willing to try this in the chance that I might get my data back, and because it would be interesting.

Anyone every try this and suceed?

 

If you're referring to the platters that hold the data, it is possible but you need what's called a 'clean room' where there is NO particulate matter larger than 100 microns (or whatever it is). Any dust or dander is too much, and too large. In other words, it is basically impossible to create a 'clean room' in your home without spending thousands on high-tech filters and ion generators. If it was just the circuit board that needed replacing, I'd say "go for it" as that is fairly simple (when compared to swapping out platters).

 

Plates.... platters.... one of those kitchen items.....

;-)

Yeah, I am referring to the platters.

I know that a clean room would be important or a functioning drive, but I am just hoping to get the thing running long enough to pull data off it. Then both drives can go into the trash as far as I'm concerned. In other words swap the platters, run it once in an external drive, move all the data, and then let my 10 year old son take them both apart for fun.

I am pretty sure it is not the circuit board, although I could try that first. The drive makes a strange clicking noise, which I have associated, perhaps wrongly, with a physical problem with the bearings.

 

Dlb is complete correct, its pretty liked you wont pull the swap off with out a "clean room" to do it in. But if its your last resort, since your not going the pro data recovery method you mention, then why not? you may get lucky and get the stuff off the drive. My personal opinion is its not gonna work, but as its your last effort, try it anyhow. Good luck.

 

I worked in a clean room many years ago, back in the day when IBM made 4GB SCSI drives.
If you want to go for it, make sure the room is as dust free as possible, preferably with no magnetic particles anywhere. Also, be careful not to transfer any static electricity to the platters when you handle them. I have had hard drives running with the covers removed, so it can be done, but all it would need is one particle of foreign matter to get in the gap between the head and the platter, and you could have problems reading data.