Repair HDD'S

[Walt]

Hi everyone,

I got some old ''broken' HDD from a friend of mine and he was asking if I could maybe fix them. He has a full crate of them laying around but he gave 2 to me. Could someone give me some advise how I can repair them and if it's even possible? 

It's not a problem if the data is deleted. 

 

Photo's:

Spoiler

Thanks!

[EasonIDontKnowAnything]

Just now, Walt said:

Hi everyone,

I got some old ''broken' HDD from a friend of mine and he was asking if I could maybe fix them. He has a full crate of them laying around but he gave 2 to me. Could someone give me some advise how I can repair them and if it's even possible? 

It's not a problem if the data is deleted. 

 

Photo's:

  Reveal hidden contents

Thanks!

did you check if they were really broken first? lmao

[bgibbz]

 in my experience, most external drives are a standard sata drive installed into an enclosure. I would disassemble the enclosures, remove the internal drive, and test the drive separately. Odds are, the drive is dead. If that is the case, repair wouldnt be an option as HDDs are incredibly delicate on the inside, and near impossible to repair mechanical faults. You can replace the hard drives inside and keep the enclosure though, which i would suggest doing.

[Joseph Stacklin]

I would use @bgibbz advice here. Then if you have more issues, you can always contact a data recovery centre like Gilware.

[ScratchCat]

As bgibbz said, probably just use the enclosures and scrap the drives, even if they could work they are likley to fail.

You could put an SSD in those and make a really rugged portable drive

[Windows7ge]

I think it's possible to fix anything with the right knowledge and tools. The question is how long will it last before it breaks again?

 

I think you would need schematics. Particularly voltage rails and probe them with a multimeter to test if they're correct.

Worst case scenario the read head has ceased up and you have to replace it and any damaged platters.

[crzyces]

If you really want to fix them, hook them up to a sata cable in a test rig and see if you can access the data that way. If you can, something in there is good. Run a chkdsk on it to see if there are errors, and if it can fix them. Then, if you want to reuse them, erase the drive/s and write zeros to them (ei don't just reformat it). Bbiz and Scratch are still correct though, are the drives worth salvaging? I couldn't see their specs so I don't know. Anything under 500 gb I wouldn't bother. (Or maybe I would, but I'm silly like that).

4 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

As bgibbz said, probably just use the enclosures and scrap the drives, even if they could work they are likley to fail.

You could put an SSD in those and make a really rugged portable drive

 

[Ykno]

do you have one of these in your house?

 

if not you will never be able to repair a HDD with broken internals

[Joseph Stacklin]

Just now, Ykno said:

do you have one of these in your house?

 

if not you will never be able to repair a HDD with broken internals

EYYY! DiY Perks!