How to Swap Hard Disk Drive Platters

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Last Updated: December 23, 2024

This is an article regarding swapping hard drive platters. It may be best to try swapping the controller board before going to a platter swap. This is less destructive, and you require an identical drive for either process anyway.

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You have tried everything else, your data is not extremely important, and/or your cash flow restricts the use of a professional service.
You can not make a super clean environment at home but use some common sense, and do the best you can. Keep air flow to a minimum.

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If you don't know what is, or how to do it, ask Google.
If the cover doesn’t just lift off, look for more screws! There are screws under labels.
If they are scratched, scorched, warped, or otherwise damaged, stop you are done!
You can still try if you like.
Make sure you can read and write data to and from it.
This is your chance to learn how they are assembled, if you slip and damage parts you can get a new donor. NOTE: if you are dealing with multiple platters they cannot be removed without the proper equipment, because misalignment of the platters will destroy any chance of recovering data. You need a platter removal tool. The next steps are only if you are dealing with a single platter.
Reassemble the donor drive with dead HDD’s platters inside (make sure all the platters are aligned in the same way towards each other as they were in the old drive).
You might only get one or two chances to read from the HDD. It might make some horrible noises.
Continued use of the HDD is ill-advised.

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How about speed 5400 or 7200?

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That is how fast your hard drive is. If it's 5400 it won't be able to read and write files as fast as a 7200.

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Do the WWN, DCM, DCX, and model number all have to match to swap hard drive disks?

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Yes, this is ideal. It's unlikely to work without all of these matching up.

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Is there any problem if the new hard drive's storage is less than the old one?

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The drive only needs to be big enough to hold your operating system, but if the new drive is smaller, you'll have less room for your own data files. For old fashioned hard drives, the highest storage sizes (like 4 TB, terabyte) qualify as "new technology" and tend to be less reliable than smaller drives (like 1 TB). Today, there's no reliable drive, whether old technology or new SSD (solid state drives). There used to be high reliability drives, so the consumer is being played for a fool. Back up your data onto a few different external devices, then you can keep your new, little drive from filling up. Hard drives start misbehaving when they're more than 2/3 full.

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To remove the platters you might have to remove the head assembly.

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This procedure is not for logically erased data. This procedure is for physically inoperable drives with intact data.

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Warnings

This will void any existing warranty.

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Hard Drives are assembled in hermetically-sealed clean rooms, free of any dust. A single speck of foreign material introduced onto a platter will destroy the drive most of the time. If this does happen, try a can of air and spray it off, but do not wipe or use chemicals.

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In most cases, this will also void your ENTIRE computers warranty, read the warranty very carefully

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