Platter Swapping on Seagate Firmware SD15

[azharsairon]

I just wanted an opinion on the thought of swapping the disc platter on a Barracuda Seagate Firmware SD15 500GB hard drive.

It is a dead drive ...these specific models of firmware are known to fail.

How much of a success percentage to you think there is to recover data?

...and, would it matter if I swapped with a smaller spaced hard drive ?
I am curious as to if the read/write procedure is specified to a certain size.
Example: my 500GB platter placed within a 260GB drives casing.

[Polkadot]

Swapping platters is a LAST-DITCH effort to saving your data. In days of yore, when HDs were very expensive, very few labs would actually go inside the drive. It required an "A-100" class clean lab. A hospital operating room would NOT qualify as a suitable environment to open up a hard drive. Too much airborne dust.

I did, however, manage to save a client's data by doing such a maneuver. He purchased a brand new hard drive (the exact same model!), and I proceeded to install his original platters on the new drive. I then suggested that he buy another disc drive, and copy EVERYTHING to the new drive, install it on his PC, and save his "resurrected" drive as strictly a 'backup' copy, and NOT an installed day-to-day usage drive. The reliability had been severely compromised on a model that did not have a good reputation for reliability to start with.

I would NOT recommend trying to mix-match parts from different models, nor using a 'rebuilt' drive as your principal drive. But if nothing else will save your data, and it is that important to you, give it a try.

[Raymond]

Well said Polkadot.

[Polkadot]

coming from YOU, that's a huge compliment! Thanx. And I hope the info will help others !

[tangomouse]

theres a easer way than swapping platters ,if u have bought the same hd as the dead one then why swap platters? just swap the pcb ,saves opening the drive ,on the dead drive its most likey the pcb to be at fault.. smooth chip tends to blow up on the pcb