Hard Drive Data Recovery - Western Digital Head Swap

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

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