Data Recovery: Hard Drive Platter Swap [Video]

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Louis Rossmann has been fighting for the right to repair electronics for years. While perusing his channel, I noticed this amazing hard drive platter swap video recently done in his shop. This completely amazed me and I thought some of the tech guys here would like to see it. Mr. Rossmann's intro only lasts two minutes so no need to skip ahead. With that I present to you the most [H]ardcore mod I have ever seen!
 
GAWD DAYAAAAAAAAAAAMN this is pretty sick! Also I am reminded of when I used to watch videos and read reports of people who were putting windows in their HDDs so that they could watch the read/write heads moving over the spinning platters. Some real shiesty shit used to go down though. Like some people would just do it in their bathrooms, turning on the shower and letting the room fill up with water vapor, which they said helped pushed dirt/debris in the air down lower to the floor. Pretty sure those aren't safe conditions for opening up HDDs regardless. One dude didn't make the window flush with the HDD casing, so the window was pushing the read/write heads into the platter, cutting a groove into the platters and breaking the heads off. Yeah, as cool as it would be, I think I am okay with NOT opening up my HDDs just for cosmetic reasons. However opening HDDs to do shit like swapping platters, that's a lot more reasonable.
 
azuza001 said:
Hot damn. That's a step I would not be willing to take!
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Backs up and buy a new larger faster drive and copy data back on yo new drive.

However that vid was badass anyone have one with ssd repair?
 
Coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

========================

When in "Halt and catch fire" they did data recovery with an open hard drive, turning the platter by hand, I tried really hard to suspend my disbelief.

Maybe that was more realistic than i thought.............


TYPO fixed
 
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I used my bathroom as a clean room once... put a window in an old HDD... worked for a long time after that mod too.
 
There is something incredibly pleasing about the precision of this mod.

I am a happy man, this Friday afternoon. Thank you for the share.
 
Very cool. I love this hardcore modding stuff and the battle to take apart and repair/modify things that weren't meant to be.
 
realdeadman said:
Coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

When in "Halt and catch fire" they did data recovery with an open hard drive, turning the platter by hard, I tried really hard to suspend my disbelief.

Maybe that was more realistic than i thought.............
Click to expand...

I've opened up drives before to help the spindle motor start spinning in order to be able to recover data.

Never did a platter swap though. Pretty cool and now I know what I would need in order to do that.
 
Cool. I always though once opened outside of a clean-room, the platters are forever dirty AKA ruined.
 
cyclone3d said:
I've opened up drives before to help the spindle motor start spinning in order to be able to recover data.
Click to expand...

I had many of the early 3.5" drives (Conner...) that stopped spinning. I would put the on the bench (no cables connected) and give the drive several quick twists. Sometimes that was all that was needed to loosen the bearings enough so the motor would spin when you connected the power. Of course I would immediately backup the data if I got that lucky.
 
Nice video. I've taken apart enough drives when I've scrapping them to recognize the pieces, but didn't know all of their their purposes or that the platters have to stay aligned.
 
Good video. I think it is time to get a new hard drive and transfer everything to it and back everything up.
 
I used to use a low heat hot air gun with a small nozzle to loosen the fluid bearings. Their method appears to be a bit 'cleaner' per se. Great video. :)
 
You would think gunking fluids would be the last part to kill the drive, considering how much advancement in these types of materials and the fluid being in sealed environment and all....
Very cool video.
 
realdeadman said:
Coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

========================

When in "Halt and catch fire" they did data recovery with an open hard drive, turning the platter by hand, I tried really hard to suspend my disbelief.

Maybe that was more realistic than i thought.............


TYPO fixed
Click to expand...
Yeah I was thinking, take off the cover, make small hole, stick a small rod in the center of the spindle and spin it with a more powerful motor... I guess if it worked that easy they would have done that.. it sounds simpler in theory.
 
And that is why you backup your data, LOL. I wonder how much they charge for that service.

I've done something similar with server scsi hard drives righ on my desk at the office. Clean room, schmeen room. But he's right about those heads clicking together magnetically, when that happens, toss it, they're done. I think I used business cards to keep them seperated. Worked well enough to slap back into a chassis and pull off some scripts one of my co-worker doofuses forgot to backup/copy.
 
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