A block of magnetic heads in a hard disk drive is a complex electromechanical component designed to read and write information on the surface of magnetic disks.
Damage to the magnetic heads unit is one of the most complicated causes of failure in hard drives. A distinctive feature of this breakdown is that the hard disk, as a rule, makes extraneous sounds and is not detected in the BIOS.
Sometimes the disk can be determined by the wrong size, but this happens after the spindle is stopped. The electronics board goes into service mode. In this case, the disk passport will indicate the incorrect volume, such as 0 bytes or 3.18 GB.
Symptoms of The BMH Malfunction:
- The Hard Drive Is Not Detected In The BIOS
- It Makes Clicks, Sometimes Squeaking Sounds
- It Is Detected and Does Not Allow Loading Of The OS
Data recovery in case of such malfunctions at a nonspecialized facility is impossible due to the complexity of the technological process and the relatively long execution time. One of the most critical factors is the inability to create an environment at least slightly close to laboratory conditions.
PITS Global Data Recovery Services provides reliable HDD data restoration solutions. Highly qualified engineers perform data recovery from hard drives with the damaged block of magnetic heads on stationary equipment.
Seagate Barracuda Data Failure
Recently, our team received a data recovery request for Seagate Barracuda 8TB Internal Hard Drive with 3.5 Inch SATA 6 Gb/s 5400 RPM 256MB Cache for Computer Desktop PC. The customer stored the memorable photos of her children on this device, but a sudden power outage damaged the media storage while she was working on the computer.
The client tried to access the data by removing the HDD and reading it with various connectors. The attempts were not successful. Only knocking sounds were heard. The customer could not access her files, so she decided to entrust the device to our experts.
Our data recovery technicians received the hard drive and started diagnostics in the ISO Certified Class 10 Cleanroom.
The inspection showed that due to the power outage, the drive’s actuator arms rushed the magnetic heads to the parking zone. This process bent the magnetic heads, making them nonfunctional.
The hard disk drive’s magnetic platters were examined using various light sources, different parts of the spectrum, polarized, gas-discharge, etc., and a microscope to determine mechanical damage and data recovery capabilities. No circular scratches were found. After receiving approval from the customer, the engineer started restoring the data.
Seagate HDD Magnetic Heads Data Recovery
Donor selection is one of the most complex and unpredictable stages in data recovery. Firstly, replacing read/write heads is a temporary and ineffective measure since a hard drive is a non-repairable device. After opening the containment area of a hard drive, it can not continue to work but should be ready to extract data.
Secondly, information about the compatibility and type of components used is not indicated anywhere. Even a complete match of all the letters of the model, batch, release date, and other information from the disc label does not guarantee the compatibility of components.
Replacing the block of magnetic heads required maximum concentration from our specialist. The replacement was done in a lab by an experienced technician who has received additional training and is experienced enough to work with fragile disks. Special BMH pullers were used to replace the block of magnetic heads. When removing the heads from the disk, they did not come into contact with each other and the surface.
When the engineer successfully replaced the magnetic heads, he started to extract data from the Seagate drive.
Seagate Hard Drive Data Recovery
After successful engraftment of the donor’s heads, a sector-by-sector copy is taken from the faulty disk as a storage device with unreadable sectors. It was done to minimize the disk load because the HDD with the replaced head unit can no longer work as a functional drive. The most significant reason for it is micro-displacements in the mounting structure of the magnetic head unit.
To speed up the extraction process, it was possible to construct separate sections containing valuable data. They were maps of files and folders, that did not contain failures, exclusion of areas with scratches, skipping faulty sections, etc.
Our data recovery expert recovered all of the vital files. We shipped the client’s data back to her after she approved the results.
Contact our customer services team at (888) 611-0737 to receive help with your device. You can also fill out the request help form to start your data recovery case immediately. Our highly-trained experts will successfully restore all the lost data.