HDD spindle motor replacement?

Today was one of those days, that you have to lock yourself in a closet and wait till the clock shows 00:01 Bad day, and on top of it, droped my lappy while running, WD7500BPKT's motor is almost royally screwed, at least I think so. It's good for transfers of less than 1MB/s. Awesome, I know. I've checked it with HD Tune, only two bad sectors, that's not a huge problem, that's why I'm thinking it's the motor. So is there a way to transfer my data in less than a month? Lost cause?

 

i had 2 bad sectors and it caused all hell of problems. boot up freeze and then software crash once i got it loaded. out of 10 boot ups i think i managed to actually get to firefox once.
there are people who can get data of a damaged drive but it cost mega wonga.

as you dropped it first thing to do if you havnt already is remove the base plate and make sure nothing is lose like the hard drive and ram.

 

It seems like the case, but was it a reaaaaaaally slow boot? I have OS on it and it locks on Windows loading screen. Tried it just couple of times though, since I don't want to waste my chance (if there is any) to save my data.

 

I think you will have better chance getting the data by using OS somewhere else, say a linux USB stick or other computer than booting it.

 

Haha, yeah a data extraction lab is going to cost hundreds - sometimes more depending on the damage (it can be upwards of $1,000 in the case of fire damage, for example).

Sounds like the arm isn't parked. baiii makes a good suggestion in that you may be able to use a Linux live OS to at least access your data, but chances are the transfer rate will still be horrendously slow.

 

If you can access your data then even at 1mb/s you can transfer all your data after a couple of days

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I can access it from my SSD, and that's how I saw the transfer rate and the HD Tune scan. Sometimes it thows me CRC error. The transfer rate is like 2h for 1GB, so it would be like 900h (a month) for my data (450GB). If I run Chkdisk, in order to see if fixing the bad sectors would improve anything, the potential risk to destroy it increases tremendously, right?

 

Not exactly. CHKDSK will reallocate good data on bad sectors to good sectors, and attempt to repair bad sectors. But this is on a magnetic level. The damage done from what you described is on a physical or mechanical level.

 

Waiting 7K1000, hopefully it would last to get all my data safe (fingers crossed).

 

i haven't tried it but wouldn't, in theory, moving the discs into another HDD (same model probably) work fine? getting a same model second hand one that works and replace the discs should work no? since start-up (whatever you call it) ?sector code? would be same?

I am a bit rusty on it so don't take me to court on it, but i can't really see why it wouldn't work really if you didn't zap it with static or stain the disc itself... might be worth a try...

does it make any strange noises? i mean the guy is going to die of old age transferring 450gb at 1mb/s... maybe the needle jumps a lot? usually when you drop it the needles go wrong, one of the tiny read/write heads get loose as they are on a quite delicate, on a quite delicate frame.

also few bad sectors, depending oh magnetic or physical, can be really life of death thing for HDD, my desktop had few, then few more, then quite a lot, once it gave up finally and i opened there was a deep groove near the middle of the disc, was amazed it actually worked so far.

 

Yes theoretically that would work, but opening up an HDD is always a huge risk.

Since the OP can access the data, it's best if he or she is simply patient since there is something to lose here.

 

Dear Lord... if you attempt that, be very careful. Transplanting platters is definitely risky (for the platter and data).

How to Swap Hard Disk Drive Platters: 17 steps - wikiHow

 

dont forget to decompress the room first and install industry grade dust filtration system. in other words a clean room.

you are brave if you do attempt it.

 

All good reasons why data extraction labs charge hundreds of dollars to perform this sort of work

I would never recommend that an amateur ever attempt to open up a hard drive unless if there is absolutely no other option, but that's just my personal opinion...

 

Thanks for the guide Prostar Computer, but for two plater drive, it requires platter removal tool, which is north of $300. With a price like this, I better pass it to professionals. I'll try with the cloning and hopefully it would be successful, as I don't have a pile of money Thanks to everyone else, for the suggestions as well.

 

Except in order to change out the disks like that, you'd need a specialized clean room. Otherwise dust and micro-debris will get in there and cause even more damage when the drive spins up. That's, in part, why data recovery services are so expensive.

If the motor is damaged to the point that the transfer rate is essentially nil, the drive is dead. You can try to transfer data off of it, but I wouldn't count on getting much. Next time, back up.

 

well i have experimented with really old 3.5" drives, and opened quite a few 2.5" dead ones, if it is single disk, moving it into another one in a relatively clean environment is not difficult if you got fairly straight hands. Also they are not pressurized, all of them had a breather hole with a tiny filter to let it breathe, thus they have a note on the sticker not to cover any of the holes, as far as i can make it out, it is to let it breathe and instead of letting it be under/over pressurized, stay in constant pressure of well ground.

I did have old 8gb 3.5" HDD running for a long time from my desktop, on top of my desk, just because it looked BLOODY AWESOME having an open HDD spinning and it worked for a fair while until, well i got bored of it. Sure over time dust and moisture will ruin it, especially more delicate new ones, but unless you live in a clothing factory it will buy you enough time to transfer your data.

Again i haven't actually tested with 2 same driver, however ones from different brands did not seem to work (Seagate and a hitachi if memory doesn't fail me, both 320gb, again to be expected not to work, more or less)

Just need to be really careful not to smudge them etc. as the space is quite tight for grabbing it.

 

Thanks to tilleroftheearth for his Partitioning for Performance thread, my data is safe and I have successfully transferred it to the 7K1000 (couple of files were corrupted, but not a big deal). It took me like 12 days, which is a lot less than what I was expecting. Due to multiple partition setup, I've used two copying instances at a time, so that's probably the reason. The only things left now is to copy the system partition (currently at 60% with a handful of corrupted files) and to see if it would be able to boot off the 7K1000 after repair It would be followed by a reformat of the WD7500BPKT, and if the performance is still crappy like this, I'll probably open it up to see its internals Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. Considering what happened with my poor WD7500BPKT, it is a rock solid drive! If it wasn't for the more space and the price as well (cost just a shy below 7K1000 here), I'd have bought another one in a heartbeat!