Hard Drive Data Recovery – Western Digital Head Swap
March 22nd, 2010 | 
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http://www.acsdata.com ~~~WARNING~~~ ****THIS IS NOT AN INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO**** There are key steps and some proprietary information that has been edited out. This is also only a 10 minute video, where just the head swap alone can take well over an hour depending on the drive. We also don’t show our method for aligning the heads on this particular model.
This video was originally produced because many of our customers were simply curious, or ill informed about what is done to physically repair a hard drive for recovery. This video is not intended to make you think swapping heads is easy. This video is not intended to make you think you can do it yourself. In 99% of this cases, if you attempt this on your own, even within a clean room environment, you will probably lose your data for good.
Also, just because your drive is clicking, does not necessarily mean the heads are bad. Proper diagnosis is key with doing data recovery correctly. Most lower level companies will just try to swap the heads, when it may be a PCB or firmware issue. When the head swap doesn’t work, they will say your data is unrecoverable. We get drives like that in every week, where a customer has been told the heads are bad, when they weren’t. So just because your drive is clicking, there maybe something more to it, but you won’t have the proper equipment needed to verify this or not and neither will a lower end data recovery firm.
The simple message here is, if your data is critical, make absolutely sure you let a professional data recovery firm do the recovery. Even if you have no desire at all to send a hard drive to us for recovery, PLEASE shop around, do your homework on the industry and ask for solid references from the company you do choose. If they are local, maybe even stop by their offices just to check them out first. There are literally thousands of companies out there that say they do this type of work, but VERY few actually do. If they say they can do a physical recovery for $199, you might want to keep shopping. The parts alone can be more than that. In most cases, a physical recovery is going to run anywhere from $600 to $1,500+ depending on the size of the drive, and the type of failure that has occurred.
http://www.acsdata.com
Duration : 0:10:0
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@Slic3R1 you might …
@Slic3R1 you might have partitions making it look like 29 but rreally 39
acsdata can you …
acsdata can you help me my maxtor has been crasht and making stange noises its a maxtor diamondMax plus 9 120GB sata/150 HDD
try to defragment …
try to defragment your disk Slic3R1. under properties
1: my Hard Drive …
1: my Hard Drive capacity is 39 GB (pretty pathetic)
2: it says that there are 29 GB used and 6 GB free space
but i already deleted everything on the drive and it still says that there are 29 GB of used space so what should i do to get the 29 GB because i need them for some games
Thanks. In all …
Thanks. In all honesty, one of the driving forces behind doing this video was to deter people who have important data from attempting a recovery on their own. We get at least 1 call a day where people specifically say, they were going to give it a shot, but once they watched this video they decided not to. In most cases when people attempt the recovery on their own, there’s really very little we can do to rectify the problems they cause. We see platters removed, scratches, you name it.
I wonder what part …
I wonder what part of “No Diagnostic Fees
No Evaluation Fees
No Data / No Charge We Only Get Paid If We Recover Your Data” isn’t entirely clear? People sending in a “ruined” HD means no payday. Some just don’t think before making accusations of conspiring to entice others to open their own HD. Yea it’s an infomerrcial ,but I founding it interesting.
Why would you pay …
Why would you pay $1000 to get your data back when you could have bought a spare drive for $100 and made an image or backup every now and then?
I guess it’s because people are dumb, and it’s great there’s professionals out there to fix it. But wouldn’t it be better if manufacturers told us how easy it is to image drives using something like the Acronis 2009 boot CD? Hec, I don’t even have to reinstall windows these days. I just load up the image from an external hard drive. Simple
top secret sticky …
top secret sticky tape and post it notes
just kidding
Great advertising …
Great advertising vid!
uhm i accidentally …
uhm i accidentally unplugged the USB wire when my computer was transferring files from external > computer…. lol anyway to fix it..
Yea illegal, your …
lols
Yea illegal, your ripping copywrited movies. You can go to jail for 5 years and pay 200,000 dollar fine. Don’t you even see the copy write notice? I would call the cops but I’m not that bad
I appreciate your …
I appreciate your comments, but I don’t really understand your problem. Our method for doing head alignments is something we spent years perfecting, and invested a great deal of time and money on. On WD drives in particular, it is a big issue for many data recovery companies. We don’t show our process, because it would be stupid to give away this information to our competitors. It has nothing to do with our customers. Our customers have no desire to attempt this due to the value of their data.
ONE STAR for this: …
ONE STAR for this: (see your info box)
“We also don’t show our method for aligning the heads on this particular model. ”
Ha! Are you afraid that your customers will leave you? douche.
I believe that it …
I believe that it is stated in the video description what this video is about. There are also numerous warnings advising people not to attempt this on their own if their data has any real value. I’m really not understanding the comment that we are making people open their drives.
What is this video …
What is this video made for I don’t understand really! acsdata is showing people some operations that are NOT COMPLETE and making them open their hd’s just to ruin them even more to get another client! That’s suck!
@OhNoNotMyPenis WD …
@OhNoNotMyPenis WD drives are the best!!! seagate,hitachi,maXtor,toshiba,samsung,fujitsu all suck like you!!!!
its a loud grinding …
its a loud grinding noise.i think the head is sumhow stuck to one part on the platter as on powerdown i cant hear the head “park”
the drive aint been dropped or knocked so no clue how it happend
Well is it a …
Well is it a grinding or a rattling noise ? RattLing is normAl
oh well data aint …
oh well data aint worth paying possibly thousands to recover. WD drives suck so hard
no. The head may …
no. The head may be touching the platter, thus digging into it.
would it be …
would it be possible for me to send mine in for a plexiglass cover?
my old WD drive …
my old WD drive makes a violent grinding noise, any chance of recovery on that
there a million …
there a million times better the seagate
LOL illegal ? same …
LOL illegal ? same as tearing a tag off a mattress .
@COPMMUSIC take the …
@COPMMUSIC take the hard drive out of its external case and open ur pc case and install it in ur case , or buy another external usb converter