Q&A for How to Swap Hard Disk Drive Platters

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How about speed 5400 or 7200?

Community Answer

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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Question

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

Community Answer

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

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Question

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

Community Answer

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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Question

Do I need to have the same hard drive to swap platters?

Community Answer

Not necessarily. You just need one of the same size (2.5 or 3.5) and the same amount of storage (250 gb, 509 gb, 1 tb, etc.)

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Question

Can I put a platter with a different size in a hard disk?

Community Answer

No, you can't put a platter with a different size in a hard disk. Laptop and desktop HDDs are built differently, and their read/write heads work differently. You can't put a desktop hard disk's platter on a laptop hard disk because it doesn't fit, while you can possibly place a laptop's hard disk platter on a desktop hard disk (but chances are it won't fit on the motor, and even if it fits, chances are some parts of the platter may not be read by the read/write head because it's too big.)

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Question

Can I swap platters if the hard drives have different speeds?

Community Answer

No. The article clearly states to get a new drive of exactly the same model and speed.

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Question

I have some loose platters lying around cause they're neat. Is the data from them considered safely destroyed?

Community Answer

From a security standpoint, no. It is still theoretically possible to recover the data from them. It would be a lot of work to recover it, but probably still possible. The only way to truly destroy the data is to physically destroy the platters. That said, unless that data is worth a lot of money, it is effectively destroyed.

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Question

If a hard drive has bad sectors, can I reassemble it and copy the data?

Community Answer

Bad sectors are in the surface of the platter. Dismounting the drive is completely useless. You can't repair that bad sectors, unless with a low level format (and that action erases the info). If you can access to the info, copy it! If you can't, there is no other option but to go to a recovery data center.

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Question

I have a WD Green 2TB Desktop HDD. My WD HDD's PCB burnt and the head is also damaged. How do I recover my data?

Community Answer

Find the same donor hard drive with same model and same speed and do the platter swap. Even if the PCB board and head are damaged, you can still recover data.

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