How to recover data from a dead hard drive (for beginners) 

I had one drive with important data in it, and was not working since a week. Suddenly today morning youtube suggested video which I wasn't expected. I've recovered more than 75% of data from that drive. Thank you

Thank You!!!!!! You saved my life. I did it and my external disk works properly. Years of 3d design projects, videos, photos... I am so happy to have it back. Now I am going to copy all to another disk. God bless you! :)

Lol that disclaimer at the end should be at the start

All the dead hard drives are always Seagate

Excellent video! Very few people on RU-vid or anywhere have shown that before you pay a data recovery company thousands of dollars to recover your data, it can't hurt to try this FREE fix. Love it.

Of course, I held my breath, awaiting your warning (at 3:05) that no hard drive opened this way should be re-used. Inevitably, some who watch your video will believe that if the drive now spins up, and was found on completion without obvious scratches, the drive has been brought back to life. The whole point of this procedure is to recover existing data as quickly as possible, and then put the drive to work as a fascinating paper weight (marking the drive with its volume name(s) and DOA date with a marking pen). Such "marking pen" documentation avoids enormous grief with data, later.

I was really scared about opening up the hard drive since I've never done anything like this before. But your instructions were easy to follow. The Seagate external hard drive was only a year old! Will never buy it again! Your video rescued all my photos and documents. Thank you SO MUCH!!!

YOU SAVED MY LIFE!!! I followed your steps and I was able to recover my design files and pictures. Thank you SO MUCH!!!!

Thanks! This saved me. appreciate the short and straight to the point video!

0:21 We can make a damn remix out of that!

This trick totally WORKED!!!! One of our laptop's hard drive totally died. I did this trick and was able to access the files using a SATA-to-USB cord. It was a life saver!!!!

2:49 AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!

All I can say is WOW. I thought once the HD is opened in open air its dead. Kudos to you for getting this to work.

He definitely nailed it!! How many of you guys found this video to be a mocked carbon copy of the video from DIY Perks: How to recover data from a hard drive (stuck heads: buzzing, clicking, etc) ??

After watching other YT videos on this topic, this is the best one to date I have seen. Glad you mentioned that after opening the hard drive and retrieving the contents, to not put the drive back into service as it will not be a reliable device. I would say in this current day and age, this isn’t quite so common as most of the new drives bought today are solid-state drives, although there are still lots of these mechanical drives still in use.

excellent video!, precise and to the point. you really saved me !

Whoa! Well done! Thanks Dude!!!

Thanks,From Tanzania, East Africa,I have fixed my hard disk through your instruction,welcome to Tanzania to see wild animals

man I missed this kind of tutorials lol. Great work here, thanks!!!

Amazing video, thank you so much

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was using my old external HD as paperweight since it die like 6 years ago, and i wasn't so sure of trying this and IT WORKED!!!!!!! I recovered lots of memories that i tought they were definetely lost. Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>dead hard drive >seagate IMAGINE MY SHOCK

This was a brilliant Video. Excellent picture quality and sound. Great technical content. Well done indeed!

Amazing! It worked perfectly! Thank you man. Nice work.

Thanks dude, can you say which connector you used to connect both the old hard drive and your PC. i struck with that stage. Thanks in advance

Thank you, a very simple and super useful video.

Resolved my issue following your video and saved precious data, this video is not doubt priceless. Thanks a lot for making this type of video😍

very helpful. I started at the 3rd option. works 100%. I used a barracuda hardfdrive 1 Tera. it installed in a few seconds

wow, i have thrown away so many drives because of this problem. Many thanks i have learned a lot today

Something else that could be causing this problem: the USB connection/unit is failing. This is what happened to my Seagate external hard drive (bought in 2008ish). The unit was making a very faint clicking noise, and so thought the problem was the hard drive (as shown in this video). Once we got the hard drive out of the plastic shell, we put it into different 'shell' (hooked it up to power and a USB to the the computer) and the clicking noise went away, and i was able to access my files without an issue! Turns out the USB unit had become very loose from the green circuit board (it was so loose it was flipping up from the board), and so was basically not doing it's job. Of note, the hard drive got really hot after only running for 15 minutes, so it's probably on the fritz as well, but we were at least able to get data off of it before it (eventually) dies.

Interesting video.. skipped through it alot cause im in a hurry, but hit like so i can watch it later. Ty.

Outstanding video .. not to much gab ( which We don't want ) but action ... Thanks !!!!!!!!

Is it possible to retrieve data from a dead or failed hard drive? I've bought something that allows me to connect with to the computer, but it can't find any of its old files on it...

"how to recover data in some rare cases or how to make it impossible for data recovery lab in most cases"

Thanks for sharing your valuable experience.

Thanks bro, i've recovered all my data, thanks you, so much

I lost so much data because of that issue. I wish I knew this year's ago!!!

This video is the best explained and most concise one, no nonsense! Thank you. I learned a lot from your video despite it was brief. Before watching the video I only know to open the hard drive to get the magnets out to hold my screw driver on the wall. Now at least I can move the arm to put the read/write head back to the edge for data recovery.

Great video, thanks!

Thanks for the great tutural.

how can get or buy a hard disk adapter with USB plug . my hard drive is similar as this one.???

thanks to you man i save my porn

This was so helpful!! Thank you

It doesn't have to be that complicated. Good video

Lol 50 shades of grey..both uncut n normal lol...🤣🤣😂🤣😂😁😁🤣

Excellent , worked perfectly for me, thanks a lot.

Thank you sir.. it works for me.. my data is save now

😍💜Thank you iam goona to revive my previous hardrive 😍

Fifty shades of grey... Damn man

my issue may be different. I have a Phanteks Enthoo Elite. It's a dual system setup. Separate PSUs for each system. The drives are used by the mini-ITX that i have. I have 3 WD Enterprise Drives. One Red (6TB), and two Gold (12TB and 4TB). I connected the Red drive, and 4TB Gold drive via 90 degree sata cables to the mini-ITX. And their power comes from the Corsair PSU (with Corsair cables) of the MAIN system. Both drives were detected by the mini-ITX until i thought, "if the drives are being used by the mini-ITX, i should should plug in their power to the Thermaltake PSU (the one being used by the mini-ITX". So, i turned off the system, flip both power switches off, waited 30 seconds and then unplugged both drives from the PSU of the MAIN system. Since i was at it, i connected the third drive (12TB Gold) to the SATA power cable, and plugged in all three to the Thermaltake PSU. Initially i forgot to connect the data cable of the third drive to the motherboard. I'm not sure if i had powered on the mini-ITX at that point. But i connected the data cable of the third PSU while the system was off. I powered on the mini-ITX, and then none of the drives were detected in Windows. I have an UEFI BIOS but there is no menu/listing for connected devices. Only in the Boot menu, the boot devices that show up are the M.2 drives ON the motherboard. After i had a friend in I.T. help me remotely. I connected the devices one by one, and even tried different ports, and enabling ALL SATA ports in the BIOS. None are detected. We even tried connecting the drives one by one to the MAIN motherboard, but the drives were still not detected. Originally all the drives were detected by my old computer through it's external hot swap bay (Thermaltake Overseer RX-1). I tried using the drives on my old PC, and they weren't detected there either. I don't know what else to do. I tried feeling whether or not the drives spun, but couldn't feel anything on the new system. On the old system it feels like the are vibrating, but that could just be the other components in the tower vibrating. Is it possible that the 90 degree data cables somehow got damaged because of how they are curved inside the case?? Should i use separate power cables for EACH hard drives? I know it seems like a dumb suggestion but I'm freaking out here.

you are not like the others who puts link filled with adds, so u deserve to be subscribed..... thanks for the plugin and all the best for future

this is what we call stiction in the field, when you heard that sound it can also be a motor seizure which blocks the platter. My 2 advice as DR Technician are 1 do this only if you don't care about the data, if your data are important then go to a professional 2 please don't use the second hard drive on the platter, the guy on the video is well versed in doing it but you may easily scratch the platter by doing as in the video. A method that you can use is to put your finger on the base of the Heads in the circular and outer area and rotate it while you rotate the screw (anti clock) in the center of the hard drive. The heads will go toward the outer part

Thank you for such excellent tip and advice. Your video tells us what to do after we open the drive. By the way, how long were you able to use that hard drive after opening it and exposing it to air?

I know it says “for beginners” but I would still be frighten to do this with a dead hard drive I have that I would love to retrieve data from

BROOO thankyou so much, this really helped and the tutorial was really easy to use as well :)

Hi, I have a 750gb WD Scorpio Blue drive that was dropped and now when powered up it gives a clicking noise and the platters spin but the heads will not move across the platters. My laptop bleeps when the drive is plugged in (and out) but does not show it in computer management. Any advice on recovering my data would be appreciated.

you gotta edit that title, you just fixed stuck head and never recovered data from dead hard drive

2:49 GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

thanks, it actually let me through so i could download it.

Ok so just use this method to get the HardDrive working just to be able to get your save data / files. Got you 👍

That hard drive is playng techno listen at the very beginning😂

Just saved $1000, RU-vid has saved me so much money over the years.

This is great... The only problem with this is that most people will think that they can simply open an HDD in a regular room. HDDs are highly sensitive to particles in the air and must be opened in a highly controlled environment (ie. Clean Room). Without the proper tools and training, the user will end up making invisible (or visible!) scratches on the platter, rendering the data permanently lost.

Being about to read the drive directory information, and being able to actually pull a valid image of the drive contents are two entirely separate things. Opening a HDD outside of a true 'clean" enviorment is a death sentence for a drive, no matter how clean you think your work space is. Also, you most likely were placing some very nice scratches on the platters as you dragged the heads across them, meaning read error after read error when you try to image the drive. I would be very interested in seeing a full clone of that drive happen without it either failing outright, or having so many read errors that the data is unrecoverable.

This is awesome 👏 you saves my life 😊

Nice tutorial! What can I do with an external Maxtor which is dead, but by electric point of view? I mean that when I connect to power is not moving...

lol all those torrents though, 50 shades of grey? lol cool vid though.

i'm no engineer, but you didn't recover data from a dead hard drive. you saved the data by saving the hard drive. vast difference.

What degreaser may be used for cleaning the disk surface without making a harm. As I understand it has to be not to chemically active. Thanks fof help

Thank you.... So much...... I helped me reviving my important (more important than my life..) data.....

Thanks for having muted those seconds of disc scratching when putting the header back in its place. Also, what IS the way to open a hdd so you can reuse it?

not data recovery; this was repair of faulty/troublesome arm or just making it temporarily operable for the data recovery operations

it helped me a lot to recover my hd from my notebook. thanks for the tip.

This is great, thank you!

Can you say me why, when you connect hard drive he began click

*Great tutorial* , now I just have to shell out the $14000 for a clear room if I want to use the hard drive again.

Thank you very much Bro. May you long live

Great vid! Thanks.

0:22 Sound effect for SoundCloud rappers.

You should have removed the Heads Magnet so that when you moved the heads while turning the platter they would freely move and would not be hard to move. I did what you did and guess what? I caused damage to the platter. In fact I didn't even use a screw driver to move the heads I saw on another video to use a dental pic and it STILL caused damage to the platter.

Can you please tell me what everything you are using to connect your computer to that damaged drive?

thanks a lot dude you saved all my records from scamming people you are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

0:21 Sounds like you'll drop some sick beats.

that suspense when we was plugging in the USB

Thanks you have saved me lot of money

Wow. useful tutorial. Clearly explained.....

What if it's isn't have sound !? I have hard drive that corrupted by the force on body.. what can I do with that ?!

My HD died so I took it apart to see if the heads were stuck but they were not. What else could cause it to fail? What else could I do to recover the data?

fixed my Toshita Canvio Connect II with ALL my Vacay 4k footage on it with this method, head stuck on platter. Now spins fine and can access almost all data! Thank you for saving my vacay!

Hello sir, u r making very good knowledgeable vdos for us, I want to ask you, could I change head without tools. I have only screw drivers.

mine doesn't make any sound, why is this?

I've had some good luck simply dropping a stuck hard drive on the floor to free it up

thank you soo much very direct link n works for me love the way you expressed the installation .

Thank you for this video 🙏

my Dell laptop fell down from a height of 4-5inches. and now the internal hard disk is not detectable and is making some 'tik tik' noise when I swithon the laptop. I contacted some data recovery agents and they said they would charge upto 50000 for that. what might be the actual problem? is that data recoverable?

What is that thing he used to view what's inside the hard drive

Awesome video !

Ima download it thanks for sharing!!

Isn't a problem to open the drive in a "non dust free" enviroment?

You're not really recovering data off of a "dead" drive because that drive isn't dead. It's only jammed.