This 500B Seagate ST9500325AS recovery project came from a local client that reported the drive just stopped working one day out of the blue. The hard drive was in a computer, so the whole computer just stopped booting fully.
Recovering A Seagate Drive With Bad Heads
The client took the computer into a computer repair shop and was told the issue was with the hard drive itself. The shop that looked at the drive did not have the tools and experience needed to recover the drive on their own, so they recommended the customer contact us for our affordable data recovery service.
Ticking sound then spinning down
When the client contacted us, they let us know the Seagate ST9500325AS drive was making a ticking sound, then spinning down. This is very classic on a Seagate of a bad head situation, so I was not surprised when I inspected the drive and found that head 0 and head 3 were both bad. Because this drive has 4 heads, I was able to use Head 1 and Head 2 to get back 50% of the data on the drive, but in order to reach 100% of the data, it would require replacing the failed heads.
Bad heads in Seagate ST9500325AS
The way drives work, every head inside the drive is in charge of writing and reading the data under it. Usually, a 4-head drive will have two platters. One head is on the top of the platter, and one head is on the bottom of the platter. Sometimes if small documents are needed you will be able to recover the most important files by just using the working heads (just by luck) and you won’t have to continue with further data recovery.
The most important files on this Seagate ST9500325AS drive were photos. Photos nowadays are actually fairly large files compared to most document files. A photo can be 5-10MB easily. This means a lot of photos are spread over multiple platters, so in order to get a usable picture back, you have to have all the heads working properly. So I was not surprised when the 50% recovered resulted in fewer of the most important files than the customer wanted to get.
Swapping the Seagate head stack
In this case, our client decided to move forward with our tier 3 head swap data recovery. I got the donor head stack on order and waited for it to arrive. With most carriers running a tad slow still, it took about 2 weeks for the process of inspection, recovering the initial 50%, and waiting for the donor parts to arrive.
Once the donor parts arrived I got the new head stack installed in the Seagate ST9500325AS, imported the head adaptives, and we were in business! The final amount recovered was 95% of sectors. The client was very pleased with the results and was happy to have their irreplaceable photos back, safe and sound.
Start the data recovery process
Have you lost important data on a Seagate ST9500325AS or any other hard drive? I can help! I am an expert in data recovery and can often retrieve your information even if it seems like it’s gone for good. I understand that losing your data can be a huge headache, so I work as quickly as possible to get you back up and running as soon as possible.
Not only do we offer quick service, but our rates are also very affordable. Plus, we offer a no data, no charge guarantee. Give me a call at (620) 615-6836 for a free consultation, or submit our quote form to find out how much I think it will cost to recover your drive.
Drive info: Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500 GB, ST9500325AS, Date: 11413, PN: 9HH134 – 567, FW: 0002BSM1, Product of China, Date: 11413, Site: WU
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