Under certain circumstances, a hard disk’s block of magnetic heads may not have time to park in a regular location, and the heads fall directly onto the disk platters in an arbitrary place. In this case, the heads stick to the plates’ surface, preventing the hard drive from spinning the engine, and a hard drive stops working.
Since the full volume of the disk should become accessible for reading after replacing the block of magnetic heads, this malfunction does not harm user files. The issue mainly arises from the fact that heads rarely fail unexpectedly.
Most of the time, this is caused by the heads contacting the file-storing magnetic platters. In this case, the plates are frequently destroyed in addition to the magnetic heads assembly.
PITS Global Data Recovery Services performs cutting-edge data recovery from damaged HDDs. To recover data from a hard drive with failed MHA, professionals must use special tools to bring stuck heads to a parking space and replace them with new ones from the same working drive. Then they assemble the virtual image of the failed HDD, restoring the data.
HGST Hard Drive Data Failure
Recently, our data recovery team received an HGST hard disk drive with a 1 TB volume. The client had the media storage installed on his laptop. He was looking through his latest finished project but accidentally knocked the computer off the table. The operating system did not boot up and made a clicking sound.
After searching for a reliable data recovery company, he decided to entrust his data to PITS Global Data Recovery Services. Our engineers received the failed HDD and started evaluation right away. They safely extracted the HGST drive and then unsealed it to evaluate in our ISO Certified Class 10 Cleanroom.
Magnetic Heads Fail For These Reasons:
Shaking, Vibration, and Other Mechanical Impacts
Overheating of a Hard Drive Operating Without Cooling
Wear of the Heads Working Without Breaks
An Incorrect Shutdown of the Hard Drive
In the customer’s case, the hard drive failed due to mechanical damage. Thus the disk continued to rotate for a while, leaving scratches on the magnetic disks.
The data recovery technician reviewed the physical state of the PCB components. After confirming that they were fully functional, he proceeded to check the mechanical parts. As expected, the magnetic heads unit crashed onto the magnetic platters. They made circular scratches and irreversibly damaged data in those areas.
The client was informed about the evaluation results. After receiving approval for the recovery process, our experts started to work on the hard drive.
HGST Hard Disk Drive Failed Magnetic Heads
Before retrieving the data, our technicians cleaned the internal part of the disk using our ultrasonic cleaner. This way, they removed all the debris particles. Then, the expert moved the magnetic heads assembly from the magnetic platters’ surfaces.
Head replacement tools, such as pullers, are used for surface-parking magnetic heads. The main task of the head puller is to get between the magnetic plates, spread the heads and take them out of the magnetic plates, as they must not touch or bend them.
In the client’s case, heads were parked on an external ramp, and different type of pullers was used. This type of puller is a comb, which is used to spread the heads parked on the external ramp of the hard drive for subsequent removal and replacement with serviceable ones.
Thanks to years of experience and state-of-art data recovery tools, our expert successfully removed the read/write heads unit. Then, they replaced them with new ones taken from compatible HDD.
After the replacement, the firmware chip was also transferred as the magnetic donor heads had to be calibrated. The next step was to read the hard disk using the sector-by-sector copying method.
HGST HDD Data Extraction
Our data recovery specialist started reading lost files. After the successful engraftment of donor heads, a sector-by-sector copy is taken from the faulty device as from a disk with unreadable sectors. It was done to decrease the disk load because the disk with the replaced head unit can no longer function as a working drive.
One of the reasons is microdisplacement in the mounting of the magnetic head as well as scratches. Our engineer constructed separate sections, maps of files, and folders, containing valuable data.
The technician successfully restored all the high-priority data and copied them to a new hard disk provided by the customer. After the client reviewed and approved the recovered files, we sent his data back.
Start your recovery case with our skilled technicians today. Contact our dedicated customer service team at (888) 611-0737 or request our help by filling out this form.