The hard drive (hdd) fell (on the floor, off the table) and does not work. Rescuing data after a hard drive crash
“Smart people decided to hang a working external hard drive by a USB cord; at the time of the presentation it fell safely, but when reconnected it even resolved itself and allowed the presentation to be completed. Upon arrival home, the drive was no longer ready, continuing to spin as usual...”
“The external hard drive fell and is now not detected, I tried to connect it to the computer - it periodically taps the heads.... "
“When working with files on an external hard drive, I accidentally touched it with my hand and the drive fell on the tiled floor... the drive works, but I can’t download the folders that I accessed last time”
“The laptop fell onto the carpet along with the external drive, the laptop is intact, but the hard drive beeps and is not detected.... "
If not every second, then every third hard drive suffers from such a malfunction. And if scratches and marks have not yet settled on the surface of the hard drive, after long attempts by the client to read something on his own, then there is still a possibility to restore the information.
I visited our laboratory WD20NMVW-11AV3S3 with one of these problems.
At first, the client made a reservation that immediately after the fall of Western, he connected it to the computer and it worked for a long time without knocking, but was not ready. And only after the Nth attempt, it periodically began to click, but continued to spin and did not turn off the engine.
At first glance, we are dealing with damage to one or more service heads, and possible damage to the service area of the drive. In the first case, if we are dealing with damage to one or more magnetic heads, then we can subtract information on the remaining workers. If the result is not satisfactory, then you cannot do without replacing the entire unit. The third option is damage to the service area, or more precisely to its modules necessary for initializing the drive. In this case, the modules are edited and if the service heads are still capable of writing, then it will be possible to restore the drive’s functionality while reading data from the external drive.
Before connecting the drive, think 10 times whether your actions will make it worse! If you do connect it, then you should not expect that if it is not detected within a short time, you need to wait another N - number of minutes until it starts clicking its heads and, holy Cats forbid, files down the surface!
If the manufacturer's warranty is important to you, I strongly recommend that you do nothing. In most cases, if the drive has no external defects, it will be taken away under warranty, but if you have it all open and scratched, difficulties will most likely arise.
Pre-preparing an external hard drive by replacing the USB controller
Let's return to our external hard drive after the crash. First, we will need to gain access via SATA because... It’s not always possible to get full functionality via USB, and we don’t need unnecessary system calls. For this, a donor board with suitable characteristics is used. After we have gained access via the SATA interface, we try to start the drive. The drive does not become ready, sometimes the heads click, but continues to work. Let's start from the end and check the service area of the drive.Testing service area modules, searching for damaged modules
Having gained access to the service area WD20NMVW-11AV3S3, we check the modules by ID. As a result, we find that modules 11, 03, 40 and 31 are not readable. And since they are necessary for the correct operation of the drive, their damage promises us some difficulties. All these modules are unique for a given drive and only 11 can fit from the same drive of a given drive.List of Shrek LT family drives
| Drive model | Number of discs | Read/Write heads | Drive model | Number of discs | Read/Write heads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WD20NMVW-11AV3S0 | 4 | 8 | WD20NMVW-11AV3S2 | 4 | 8 |
| WD20NMVW-11AV3S3 | 4 | 8 | WD20NPVX-00EA4T0 | 4 | 8 |
| WD20NMVW-1W68S0 | 4 | 8 | WD20NMVW - 11AV3S4 | 4 | 8 |
Also, without module 11, it is not possible to work with the service area using other copies. Holy Cats!
When the module from a close relative was finally found, we gain access to the service area and other heads. Well, let's try to re-read the modules for all heads. The waves rocked our bank, the wind fluttered our sails with ferocious squeals: module 03 – yes, module 40 – yes…. The shores of a painfully familiar green clearing were visible, when suddenly we ran aground... The original module 31 and 11 were still unreadable. And a few seconds later the sails were torn off. The disk sank, and with it our hope of arriving on time.
Preparing an external hard drive for replacing the magnetic head unit
Most drives have so-called “control holes” under the drive’s “controller” circuit board or on the side of the drive. Using these holes, you can inspect the bottom plate of the drive for nicks or scratches. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to check whether the magnetic head unit is damaged without opening the entire hermetic zone. Let's begin inspecting the containment zone and the magnetic head unit for scratches, chips and cuts; all work is carried out in a laminar flow hood in order to minimize the penetration of contaminants into the containment zone of the drive. And if such passengers cannot be detected, then you can proceed to the next stage - replacing the magnetic head unit.Replacing the magnetic head unit. Fixing damaged modules. Data recovery from an external hard drive - proofreading (presence of bad sectors)
Fortunately, the ship did not collapse and we were able to tighten the sails. Now all that remained was to wait for the water to return to the bay, along with the current and wind. With the new heads, the drive made it possible to read 31 and 11 modules without unnecessary sounds. The damage affected only those areas that are not important to us. Therefore, all that remained was to write each module in its place. After some time, a beautiful view of a green meadow appeared before the tired team. The recent storm took its toll on her appearance. And the garbage washed ashore could be seen from afar as black dots, but were not very noticeable. Having moored and read the first sector of the drive, and then seen the entire structure and folders stored on the drive, we begin to create a copy of the files.The entire recovery procedure took no more than 8 days (6 days for reading the entire data block and 2 days for reading files that were in an area with a large number of bad sectors). The client needed some files that were in the area most affected by the fall. In this regard, the process was extended by 2 days - since when reading data in that area, the heads “caught”. This ultimately required additional surface treatment of the external hard drive's platters.
The phrase “hard drive has fallen” has two meanings in computer geek slang. In one case, this refers to the restoration of functions, as well as data that are in the hard drive, when it actually fell from a certain height and the consequences of this fall are mechanical damage.
And in the second case - when it is meant that it is impossible to remove data from the disk, due to the computer system not perceiving it (the computer “does not see” the disk) or when the disk’s own operating system shows its capacity as zero.
How to recover a hard drive after a shock?
Therefore, the consequences of an actual or conditional “fall” of the hard drive may include:
— hardware nature (mechanical damage), which accounts for 59% of all hard drive failures;
— logical nature (when the disk is infected with a virus), which accounts for 33% of malfunctions;
— software problems (due to a program failure) account for 8% of the possible causes of a hard drive crash.
Consequences of mechanical damage resulting from an impact or falling hard drive
The situation is this: there is a hard drive that has been dropped or received a blow. The task is how to restore a hard drive after a fall, which means restoring the information that is on the disk after the damaged hard drive has been repaired.
As a rule, in order to overcome problems resulting from damage to a disk drive, it is necessary to eliminate violations in its mechanics. The consequences of these violations may be:
— chips of the body and dents from impact. When an external drive or an internal hard drive located in the system unit falls, the integrity and displacement of its mechanical parts occur and minimal displacements are sufficient for the disk heads to touch its surface;
— the inability of magnetic disks to spin up to the required speed. Which may be a consequence of the motor jamming or the reading heads sticking to the magnetized surfaces of the disks, thereby preventing their normal rotation;
- knocking of the read heads. Which means the heads can't read the data because the disks have become misaligned. With this type of damage, it is necessary to change the entire block of magnetic heads using a purchased donor. Where the donor is a block of magnetic heads completely identical to the damaged block;
- noise when rotating disks. This is evidence that the heads are touching the surface of the disks, scratching it. In this case, the data on the disk most likely cannot be saved.
— the disk cannot spin up, but sounds are heard from the hard drive case. This may indicate that the heads are stuck to the magnetic disks. The motor cannot overcome the resistance of the stuck read heads.
Therefore, if an external storage drive or a computer operating unit with a hard drive inside is dropped without being turned on, under no circumstances should you turn it on afterwards to check its operation. You must immediately contact a service center in order to carry out a restoration, as disk and the information stored on it;
We tell you how to do this in Russian and in as much detail as possible. However, when deciding how to restore a hard drive after an impact, when replacing damaged magnetic read heads, it is necessary to take into account their full compatibility.
Replacement must be done in a perfectly clean workplace and using perfectly clean working tools. Otherwise, dust particles trapped in the sealed casing of the disk drive can ruin all the work of replacing the magnetic head unit. Since dust can scratch the magnetic surface of disks, thereby destroying the information stored on them.
When selecting a donor to repair a hard drive to replace a block of magnetic heads, you also need to take into account that the heads match in user zones or, as computer scientists also call them, parking types, which are divided into internal (when the heads are between the disks) and external (when the head is located outside drive) parking.
After a donor hard drive with heads has been selected and all other parameters of the hard drive are completely identical, you can begin the process of disassembling the damaged drive. The screws that are located on the cover of the hard drive housing that secure the axis of the magnetic head unit are unscrewed from the very beginning. After this, unscrew the screws that connect the cover to the main body of the hard drive. The cover is removed with extreme care so as not to damage the seal.
Only after removing the cover will there be access to the engine and the head positioning system, the magnet of which must be removed to get to the heads. After removing the magnet, having first unscrewed the screws securing it, you should disconnect the head control connector, which is attached to the hard drive case. Only after this they begin to remove the parking system with limiters that limit the free exit of the heads from the user area.
If the design of the hard drive is such that it has only an external parking system, then the heads are brought out beyond the user zones, while moving them beyond the magnetic disks, carefully so as not to damage the surface, rotating them until the heads go beyond the user zones.
At the same time, to prevent the heads from sticking together, you need to insert strips of insulating material between them. This, of course, is the case if the hard drive has more than one read head.
After the heads are moved beyond the disk, unscrew the screw or nut securing the magnetic head block and remove them from the axis. This operation should be carried out with rubber gloves to isolate the heads from static electricity, which can accumulate on unprotected skin of the hands. In addition, the block of magnetic heads must be removed using tweezers so as not to damage the conductors connecting the heads to the switching device.
After removing the heads of the damaged hard drive, we perform the same operations with the donor hard drive, removing the heads in the same way.
Installation of the heads is carried out in the reverse order of their removal, starting with installing the donor heads on the axis of the damaged hard drive using, again, tweezers, and securing them with a screw after they are placed above the surface of the magnetic disks.
They are installed by rotating the magnetic disks and moving the heads into the parking area. We can say that it was carried out successfully only when, when rotating the disks, no extraneous sounds are heard or the disks are not felt jamming. Otherwise, you need to once again carefully check that the magnetic heads of the disks are installed correctly.
Otherwise, if the heads touch the surface of the disks, this may damage them, with the loss of all data accumulated on the disks.
If the heads are successfully inserted into the user zones, we install all other elements of the head positioning system in place - we put the positioning magnet in place, connect the terminals, screw in all the fasteners and turn on the hard drive.
Repairing a damaged disk is only necessary to recover data
If installed correctly, the hard drive should be visible to the computer, and we can copy all data from it. However, it is still not recommended to use this disk in the future. Before you repair a hard drive after a fall, you need to clearly understand that repairing this drive is necessary in order to remove the necessary information from it. And nothing more. Even a repaired disk will no longer work reliably after a fall. Therefore, such disks are repaired only to remove important data.
After reviewing the hard drive repair procedure, you can determine that these operations still require professional skills and abilities. Therefore, if you need to recover data from a damaged hard drive, it is best to contact special service companies that have the appropriate conditions, tools, software for reading information from damaged drives and, of course, qualified specialists.
If a sad situation occurs when the hard drive receives physical damage, be it damage from a fall or just being hit, then you do not rush to worry about the loss of data, because... In an effort to talk about computers in Russian and in the most accessible language, we have prepared this article for you, from which you will learn how to restore an external hard drive after a fall.
In this article, we focus on methods and devices that can be used to eliminate mechanical problems, because it is because of them that violations occur that do not allow the hard drive to read information.
How to recover a hard drive after a fall?
Even small drops of a hard drive can cause displacement of the mechanical internals, which, even with minimal deviations, will be enough for the heads to scratch the magnetic surface.
This often happens when the heads stick to the magnetic surface of the disk and are subsequently unable to unwind.
Occurs due to the fact that as a result of the fall, the magnetic disks are displaced and the heads cannot find access to the servo information. This is a critical case when the magnetic head unit needs to be replaced; a special “donor” is purchased for this procedure.
In this case, this is due to the heads scratching the magnetic surface, which leads to irreversible data loss without the possibility of recovery. It is under no circumstances recommended to use such a disk and immediately take it to a service center.
The disk does not spin up, but makes strange noises when trying to work.
This happens due to the hard drive heads sticking to the magnetic surfaces; the motor tries to spin up, but it fails, which is why squeaks occur.
- Traces of impacts and dents.
- Engine bearing wedge.
- Scratches on the disc surface.
- Damage to the magnetic head unit.
- The most common problems with HDD non-functioning are physical ones, which we discussed above. Physical damage accounts for 59% of all cases where a hard drive becomes faulty. That is why in this article we will pay special attention to how to repair a hard drive after an impact.
- Logical problems. They occur in cases where the hard drive was infected with a virus or was carelessly formatted. Among all cases of calls to service centers, logical problems account for 33 percent.
- Software problems. They happen when failures occur in the personal operating system on which the drive runs. The hard drive uses a huge amount of profile information: lists, placement zones, tables. From time to time, as in any other system, failures are also possible here. However, compared to other problems, software problems are still quite rare and occupy only 8% of all cases.
Since various damage to the magnetic head unit is the most common among the physical problems that are addressed to the service, let’s focus on this problem. We will need a donor, that is, a model identical to the one we will be repairing, and special professional tools, since we will be replacing magnetic heads. Also, experience in these technical operations will also be very welcome, so if you are not confident in your abilities, then give this work to specialists.
Before starting work, properly prepare your workplace, completely remove all dust from it, the specialized tool must also be sterile and free of dust as much as possible.
- Keep the work area sterile.
- Don't rush, work carefully.
- Select a compatible BMG donor.
Donor. What is it and how not to make a mistake when choosing it
A donor is a drive identical to the one you are going to replace in a damaged HDD. In order not to make a mistake when choosing it, choose one that has the same model, record reading type and HDA.
After we have selected the right donor, we get down to work:
Often the BMG axle on the HDA cover is bolted, we unscrew it first. Next, unscrew the bolts that secure the HDA to the frame. The next step is to remove the cover, but do this carefully, under it there is a sealing gasket, which in no case should even be scratched. After removing the cover and protective film, we see all the mechanisms that make up the HDA. Since we need to replace faulty heads, some of these mechanisms will have to be disassembled.
First, remove the main magnet in the positioning system located on top. We unscrew all the bolts securing it and carefully take it out and press it with wire cutters, but hold it firmly, the magnets in the HDD are very strong, they easily attract each other and also easily fail if damaged.
Below the magnet you can see the positioning system along with the VCM coil. The head control connector is tightly screwed to the frame; we unscrew the screws holding it in place. Next, in order to remove the heads from the user area, we remove the limiters and the parking system.
Now comes the most difficult stage. If your HDD uses an external parking system, then first you should remove the heads from it. This is done like this: we continuously rotate the plates so that the heads do not stick to the surfaces, and remove the heads from the user area along with removing the parking system.
To remove the heads from the plates, make sure that they do not stick together. In this case, it will not be possible to do without a container from HDRC, specialized for these purposes, in which we place one of the heads.
If everything was done correctly, the heads will be packed and removed without damage. The time has come to remove the BMG. However, remember that it is very vulnerable to static voltage, so we advise you to properly ground the tools and work with gloves made of dielectric material. Well, unscrew the screw holding the BMG and pull the top and remove it from the axle. It is best to pull it with pliers so as not to damage the conductors.
Now we perform exactly the same operations for our donor and we have at our disposal a large set of good heads with which we replace the faulty heads in our damaged HDD. Now we carry out all the same operations as performed above, but only in reverse order. If you managed it before, you can do it now. However, it is especially worth paying attention to getting the heads on the surface. In order to expand the heads, we will again use special tools from HDRC or tools from other specialized companies.
The next special point is the installation of the parking element; special attention should be paid to ensuring that it is installed without any noise, otherwise in the future during operation this will certainly lead to internal damage to the drive. Well, this is the most difficult stage.
We assemble the entire HDD together and close it with the lid. Now we turn it on to the network and if all the steps were carried out correctly and carefully, then reconnection will occur and the data will be restored.
- If the BIOS does not see the hard drive, this does not mean that it is faulty or that its repair was unsuccessful. In this case, this is a purely software problem and can be treated by cleaning the bads or replacing the software of the disk itself.
- A hard drive can last five hundred thousand hours, or about 50 years, without breaking down. In fact, this is not true. This only indicates how long this model can theoretically last, but in practice we have the fact that half a dozen percent of disks fail in the first year, so don’t rely too much on this number.
- Don’t be fooled by the talk that professional data recovery from a hard drive after a fall is a very expensive procedure. This is not so, but only within one and a half thousand rubles, and diagnostics should be carried out completely free of charge.
Read, what to do after a hard drive falls or hits. How to properly restore your data without permanently destroying it. It goes without saying that dropping any electronic device will not lead to anything good. And this is especially true for external (“portable”) or built-in hard drives, since this often leads to disk failure and requires the restoration of valuable documents or other files stored on them.
Content:
Troubleshooting
Modern external hard drives are much more resistant to shocks and drops than older devices. But this does not mean that they are invulnerable. Any fall or careless impact can lead to failure of the head of the external hard drive. This means that the write/read head of the external hard drive has come into contact with the platters.
Voltage fluctuations, water ingress, reformatting of an external hard drive, and even time, can lead to hard drive failure. Therefore, it is important to determine what is the root cause of the problem. This is the only way you can get an idea of what you need to do to retrieve the files stored on your external hard drive.
Don't rush to use the software
The fact is that file recovery software can only fix problems that are associated with a logical failure of the hard drive, but the programs will not be able to recover files from a disk that has a physical failure. If you drop your hard drive, the software probably won't help you anymore. But it will also not help if water gets into the external hard drive, or it is damaged as a result of voltage surges. Utilities are designed for cases in which data loss is due to unplanned file deletion, disk formatting, virus attack, system crash, file system error, etc.
You should only use hard drive repair and recovery programs if you are sure that they are designed for the drive of a given manufacturer (for example, AData, Corsair, Hitachi or Samsung drives). You run the risk of reformatting or "re-initializing" your drive, making data recovery nearly impossible, even for an experienced engineer. There are many data recovery programs on the Internet that are available for free download, but you may do more harm than good by using some of them.
Don't try to do anything using your own methods.
It's not easy, but you should avoid the temptation to tinker with your storage device after it's been dropped to figure out what the problem actually is. Almost always, when someone tries to carry out independent repairs at home or even disassemble a disk in order to satisfy their own curiosity, they only complicate the work for a professional tool. Methods such as freezing, disassembling, or pounding the hard drive (yes, some people claim this works) should not be used by you, and will most likely make the job of recovering data from such a hard drive even harder.
Never try to open the protective cover in which the hard drive is hidden! If technicians need to open a hard drive, they use clean rooms to filter out tiny particles in the air, as they can contaminate and damage some of the external hard drive's components.
what can you do
Don't think that data can't be recovered even in the most seemingly catastrophic situations. Check all possible storage media for backup copies of files that were saved to an external hard drive. Check the laptops, disks, other computers and external hard drives that you have, all kinds of cloud services that you use or have used in the past. Even if the copies of the files you find are outdated or incomplete, they may be the best place to start.
If you are not sure about the need for expensive repairs and data recovery within the walls of a professional laboratory, and you are serious about returning the data, leave this work to professional software. Hetman Software offers proven utilities for recovering files from external hard drives, suitable for recovering any type of file.
Download programs from the official website for free and try to return the necessary information. You can make sure that your files can be recovered before purchasing the program.
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Every day, more and more people prefer using laptops over traditional desktop computers. One of the factors that influences this choice is portability, relatively light weight and size. You can take a netbook or laptop with you on a long business trip or trip; you can simply move the device around your apartment or office.
Unfortunately, the consequence of this mobility is a high probability of damage to the device.
Chips and cracks in the case, damage to the screen and hard drive are a very common breakdown after a laptop is dropped. It is worth understanding that all damage from a fall has very serious consequences, and troubleshooting the problems that arise will require significant time and effort.
If your laptop is dropped, special attention should be paid to checking the hard drive, since this device is very sensitive to falls and shocks and, as a result, the safety of information may be in question even as a result of minor damage.
Common hard drive damage caused by dropping a laptop.
Such breakdowns include: damage to the surface of the hard drive, sticking of magnetic heads and wedge of the hard drive spindle, damage to the electronics.
One of the most common defects that appear when a laptop is dropped is bearing jamming on HDD spindle motor. In the event of such a breakdown, the computer cannot start working, since the hard drive simply cannot spin up due to the spindle wedge. To correct this problem, the magnetic surfaces of the damaged disk are rearranged into the case of another HDD, with an attempt to further recover the data. With this defect, the probability of data recovery is high.
Recovering a hard drive in case magnetic heads sticking is carried out by removing them from the surface of the hard drive and then reading the information with the native HDD heads. If such actions do not bring the desired result, you can try the option of replacing the entire set of magnetic heads of the hard drive. In this case, the chances of success are also very high.
The most unfavorable mechanical damage is physical impact on the magnetic surface of the HDD. When a hard drive is dropped, the heads become deformed, which can scratch the magnetic surface. If a fall occurs during operation, concentric scratches may form on the surfaces of the hard drive, which makes HDD repair and data recovery unlikely.
Repairing mechanical damage to the hard drive caused by dropping a laptop is carried out by service workshop specialists, but this operation is very expensive and takes a long time.
