Weird Seagate HDD help?

[Jared Collins]

(Please turn sound on) Dead HDD problems I could use some advice with. This one is a Seagate with no return ramp, and the landing position of the heads is by the spindle itself (as seen in the vid.) My guess is that the heads are damaged and need replacing, but as I've never repaired an hdd and videos online don't reference this issue, I figured I'd turn to y'all. It's got sensitive info on it, so the person I'm helping doesn't want it sent to a recovery service. Do y'all have any idea what is broken/needs to be done? If not, then where could I get that info?

[Ryker Robb]

1 hour ago, Jared Collins said:

(Please turn sound on) Dead HDD problems I could use some advice with. This one is a Seagate with no return ramp, and the landing position of the heads is by the spindle itself (as seen in the vid.) My guess is that the heads are damaged and need replacing, but as I've never repaired an hdd and videos online don't reference this issue, I figured I'd turn to y'all. It's got sensitive info on it, so the person I'm helping doesn't want it sent to a recovery service. Do y'all have any idea what is broken/needs to be done? If not, then where could I get that info?

 

Okay, first of all, you should never open a drive that has important data on it, at least not without a clean room. Any dust or other contaminants will further damage the drive and make any recovery even harder. Second of all, that drive looks like a barracuda 7200.12, 1tb(correct me if im wrong), and that drive needs adequate pressure on top of the head stack ( using that screw that goes into the head stack and the top cover) to function properly, otherwise even a perfectly heathy drive will make that screeching noise once the cover is removed.

 

So with that in mind, what exactly was wrong with the drive, before you opened it?

[Ryker Robb]

1 hour ago, Jared Collins said:

This one is a Seagate with no return ramp, and the landing position of the heads is by the spindle itself (as seen in the vid.)

This is called css (contact start stop). Seagate is the only company to still use this, with the last drive model still using it being the st1000dm010, i believe.

[Ryker Robb]

1 hour ago, Schnoz said:

Yep! The OEM version, the ST1000DM003, is the exact same chassis but with an unload ramp, likely to meet reliability demands of OEMs.

You can also identify which ones are using head ramps for either model, by the placement of the internal air filter (and the design to account for it on the top cover), with ones using head ramps having it on the bottom left side: 

and the ones without head ramps having their air filters on the bottom right side:

The ones without head ramps also should have the "Reg model: str009" on the top cover as well.