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Laptops are quickly overtaking desktops as the computer of choice. The heart of any
laptop, meanwhile, is its hard drive. Explore this image gallery to see how one of the
world's most popular mobile hard disks (the Hitachi Travelstar) is put together to power
countless laptops. You'll gain a new perspective on the main component powering all
those notebooks you see the next time you frequent the local coffeehouse.
The Hitachi Travelstar mobile hard disk. This model sported a 5400rpm motor, ATA
interface and 40GB of data storage.
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Removing the hard drive cage
This particular Hitachi Travelstar was removed from a Dell Inspiron laptop.
Several Philips screws (one of which is shown here at the top left corner) must be
removed to free the Hitachi hard disk from the silver hard disk assembly used to hold the
hard drive securely within the Dell Inspiron's hard disk bay.
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The hard disk cage
This silver cage, perforated to encourage cooling airflow, holds the hard disk securely
within the Dell's hard disk bay.
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Hard disk cage removed
Once the hard disk cage's screws are removed, the assembly falls free from the Hitachi
hard drive. The Hitachi's circuit board, shown here on the right, is then revealed.
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Disassembling the Hitachi Travelstar
To continue disassembling the Hitachi Travelstar, next several small Torx screws must be
removed. So, too, must the drive's label.
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Disassembling the Hitachi Travelstar
The hard disk's label must be removed to reveal a seventh hidden Torx screw. Once this
last Torx screw is eliminated, the cover freely opens.
It should be noted, of course, that removing the label (even if the screw behind the label
remains) voids the manufacturer's warranty.
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Inside the Hitachi Travelstar
Once the seven Torx screws are removed, the drive's front cover (now shown on the left)
easily slips away.
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Inside the Hitachi Travelstar Hard Disk
Removing the cover reveals the actual Hitachi hard disk platter (the large silver mirror-
like disk), actuator arm (whose arm begins at approximately the 7 o'clock position in this
image) and spindle motor (the silver circle in the center). Meanwhile, the actuator arm
mechanism, which is responsible for controlling and moving the actuator arm, is the
silver metallic assembly in the bottom left corner.
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The Hitachi hard drive cover
Here's a close up of the underside of the Hitachi hard drive's front cover.
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The actuator arm
Here you can see the Hitachi Travelstar actuator arm, controller assembly and circuit
board. The actual hard disk head, which is responsible for reading and writing data, sits at
the very tip of the actuator arm.
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The Travelstar read/write head
In this closeup of the Travelstar's actuator arm, you can see the read/write head that sits at
the arm's tip. The head, of course, is responsible for reading and writing data to the
Travelstar's hard disk platter.
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The Hitachi Travelstar, minus actuator
Here's the Hitachi Travelstar hard disk with the actuator arm, assembly and circuit board
removed. All that remains, essentially, is the Travelstar hard disk platter and the spindle
motor hub.
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The Hitachi Travelstar platter
The actual Hitachi Travelstar hard disk is smaller than a mini CD. Here you can see it
pictured next to a small screwdriver.
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The spindle cover
The Travelstar's spindle (and spacer) are tiny. Engineered to perform at precise
tolerances, the actual spindle cover and spacer are quite small; they must be to
accommodate the smaller mobile two-and-a-half inch hard disks.
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The Travelstar circuit board
Removing several additional Torx screws from the drive's bottom enables slipping the
Travelstar's circuit board away from the hard disk cover.
This specific board features Samsung-manufactured circuits. The board also contains the
pin assembly (positioned here on the board's left edge) used to connect the drive to a PC
or IDE cable.
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Hitachi Travelstar circuit board
The backside of the Hitachi Travelstar Circuit Board reveals the component was
manufactured in Malaysia.
Here you can also see another view of the same pin assembly shown in the last image
(positioned here along the board's right edge).
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The Disassembled Laptop Hard Drive Parts
Here are all the components that powered this Hitachi Travelstar mobile drive through its
three-year lifecycle.
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How to Replace the Pins on a Laptop Hard Drive
The laptop hard drive, mostly a reduced version of a standard hard drive, has data cable
connector pins that may break off. Replacing these pins is a straightforward process that
will require moderate computer hardware skills.
Instructions
Step 1
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Unscrew the damaged hard drive's TORX screws that are holding the controller circuit
board in place. The controller cards contain all of the data pins, which cannot be easily
re-soldered.
Step 2
Carefully remove the controller board from the hard drive. There is a small ribbon cable
on the back or bottom of the card that will tear if not handled properly. Tugging on it
very gently will dislodge it. If the ribbon cable comes from the hard drive and plugs into
the controller card, then it must be removed, not cut.
Step 3
Replace the controller board with one from a similar make and model, and plug in the
ribbon cable. Some manufacturers will use the same controller cards for several models
over a product's lifespan. Since the pins are very small and very close together, it is not
possible to repair them once they break off. They must be replaced with the controller
board.
Step 4
Replace the TORX screws that hold the board to the hard drive. Be careful to not over-
tighten them. The drive should now be installed into the laptop, and tested.
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Laptop Hard Drive Circuit Board Repair
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Questions to ask Before attempting any form of self data recovery or hard drive repair
Important things you should be aware of before you do anything to a suspected failed
hard drive
Static discharge will kill a hard drive when handling... especially the internal components
Dust will destroy your data... DO NOT OPEN! In my experience I see so many hard
drives destroyed by helpful neighbors when the problem was not situated internal of the
hard drive assembly. Just because it clicks doesn't always represent an internal failure.
Swapping the electronics runs the risk of further damage, especially if the revision
number of the PCB is different. You will have a greater success of data recovery with
less risk if the original electronics is repaired.
The Printed Circuit Board controls many functions to operate the hard disk drive, There
are 5 main features of a the electronics that can be unique to each drive that is likely to
fail, the first being:
POWER INPUT
The most problems we see here are mostly human era... forcing the power plug
in the wrong way
Unfortunately apart from a few notebook PCB's there is no protection fuse to
prevent PCB Damage
There is also risk of power surges making it through to the electronics as well
FIRMWARE
Firmware is unique to the PCB this controls calibration and track information so it
is very rare to be able to interchange the same model PCB with one that has
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another firmware revision... so what this means, if your board shorts out the
firmware unique to the drive, you will be in trouble. Of course a good main
stream data recovery company will be able to replace this and manually
reprogram this chip
SPINDLE IC
This controls the speed and rotation of the spindle rotating the platters internal
to the hard drive assembly or HDA
These intend to get very hot at times and can often short out… The most famous
of models to this was the good old quantum LCT, particularly the TDA5247HT
Chip; this would go up in smoke and leave a pin hole or a very big mess on or
over the IC
MICRO CONTROLLER
These rarely fail unless there has been an extreme hit by power such as a
lightning strike that may cause voltage through the IDE Cable. If this does fail
you would normally find visible damage
TRACKS
Internal track are the thin Copper ribbons that run through the board that
connect each component these can be easily damaged bay any of the above
case scenarios, but one of the most common that I have seen is Corrosion
Below is a great Example of how quickly chemicals in the air from industrial
workshops or even sulfa in the air from volcanic regions can cause havoc... but
for most residential computer hard drives its condensation that damages a PCB
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Yes there's a high chance...
Try that same scenario 6 months after heavy use... and results will could be very
different
There's a high chance that each PCB has made themselves unique to each drive!
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Hard Drive Head & Platter Swap Replacement
Clicking or Grinding Sounding hard drives may indicate an internal read write
head Failure What should i Know before breaking the seals and attempting to
replace the read write heads of a hard disk drive
Static Electricity
Parts
Clean Room
Steady Hands
Initiation
Removing Platters
Balancing
Static Electricity
This could be the difference between a successful recovery and a waste of time and
money when the matching hard drive parts finally arrive Be static aware as the internal
components of a hard drive are far more sensitive to static electricity than the common
PCB
Parts
Please see the hard drive parts section of this site for further information
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Clean Room
A Clean room is more precautionary than critical but carries the reassurance of less or no
dust particle platter contamination
Steady Hands
You cant beat experience, doing something so delicate for the first time has so much risk
associated with it rather than giving the task to a person who has done the procedure a
1000 times
Initiation
This is a process of calibration that occurs with a successful head swap has been
preformed
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Hard drive bad sector repair
Bad sectors on hard drive in most cases can still be read What is a bad sector? Bad
sectors range from physical damage of the platter to faulty or failing read write heads... to
a sector failing the ECC error checking control checksum
Bad sectors are cause by several problems, One being the integrity of the platter surface
is failing Corruption by the track data Failing of a Read Write Head System Area
Damage such as bad translation of the recorded medium
Location of bad sectors on a hard drive is very important as well, the master file table or
MFT is normally located around LBA Logical Block Address 6,300,000 of course you
can find exactly where this starts using tools like winhex
The Master File Table contains files names and physical location of all the data A good
example would to have imaged a hard drive but you had thousands of bad sectors in this
area would mean you would have raw data with no access to file names or location, such
programs as raw recovery or fast file finders are good to use in these situations
In all instances it can be difficult to establish which one of these problems is associated
with your particular failure As all of the above will behave the same way when it comes
to trying to read data or even image a drive
If one of the four heads in your hard drive fail's and that head is not required for drive
initiation for normal operation, the operating system would associate this as a bad sector
or multiple bad sectors when trying to read (Very Common)
This is where diagnostics are needed to perform what i like to call Factual Prognoses At
first most if not all silent drives... meaning no clear clicking and appear to be spinning
normally would associate with bad sectors
When it comes to data recovery several operations can give you clear understand of the
fault at hand
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to disabling the Error read control to enable a bad read of a sector or even multiple
comparison reads of a sector to get maximum results
Remember that drive with bad sectors are failing and will worsen with more use no
matter the fault Its a good idea if data is important to call to back up and transfer data to a
new hard drive
What is a Clean room for hard drive repair & data recovery?
This is the Prevention and the reduction of dust particles and contamination of the hard
drive platters, but is this necessary?
Trust me it is!
Below is a demonstration of an opened hard drive that has had the lid removed and the
Actuator (Magnet) Replaced on a clean desk that would have only been exposed for less
than 3 minutes
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As you can see the particles are clearly visible when a camera flash is used
TIP: If for what ever reason you have taken the lid off your hard drive to investigate the
clicking or strange noise: Use a can of Compressed air to quickly remove any
contaminants prior to replacing the Top of the hard drive.
Its not so much that dust causes major Problems it's things like dead skin that instantly
sticks to the platter of the hard drive.
When it comes to file structures such as Mac HFS+ data is daisy chained and one bad
sector can cause the rest of the chain to fall off with NO recollection of where it belongs
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COMMON HARD DRIVE FAULTS
Please Note: This area will be slowly updated with common faults from hard drives
that I see on a daily bases, these will consist of jammed spindle motors to system
area faults, head crashes, PCB component issues, stuck read write heads to the
unfortunate unrepair-able faults
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These range from spindle IC failure such as overheating and even a physical
burn out of components
This could even be the aftermath of more serious problems such as the bearings
locking up of the spindle motor that rotates the internal platters at variable
speeds
As mentioned above this can cause all sorts of problems... you might even think
there is no power getting to the drive and yet every time you try something new
in the hopes of retrieving data... all you accomplish is more damage to critical
components
This can be caused by several different scenarios from rotational speed enabling
the read write heads to make contact with the platters, which would normally
cause a ring or scratch around the platters surface.
Head Slap or violent knocking of the armature causing the heads to become
misaligned
Unsuccessful park when from an improper shut down
Bad Translator, Grown Defects, Log Files & Smart can cause havoc with a drive
HTS541040G9AT00........
HTS548020M9AT00........
HTS726060M9AT00........
HTS548040M9AT00........
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IC25N060ATMR04-0.......
IC25N030ATMR04-0.......
IC25N040ATMR04-0.......
IC25N040ATCS05-0.......
IC25N020ATCS04-0.......
Although with the naked eye the platter seems intact.. but as in this example I
have removed the platters and sprayed the drive with a tell all solution, a very
fine ring appears, although small, this is enough to kill any replacement parts in
seconds
This is a very common issue especially with hard drives 250 gigabyte and up,
This is mostly caused by a sharp shock to the drive while in motion, such as
knocking the drive over in an external USB enclosure.
Below I have pulled this jammed spindle motor apart to demonstrate where the
fault lies and what not to do!
First of all
Problem #1
This is NOT a spindle Bearing problem so trying to put any type of oil is not
going to achieve anything but unrecoverable platter damage, if you do indeed
manage to resurrect the drive to spin.. rotational gravity will take over and seep
any oil away from the bearings and all over your platter.
This is a true story I have seen many times.
As you can see in the diagram the spindles shaft has caused unrepair-able
abrasions in the spindles cylinder... this is much like a piston from a car engine,
it needs to move freely and if damaged this would need to be machined smooth
or re-bored
So forcing of the spindle to turn, will only make matters worse... this spindle
motor needs to be replaced!
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Problem #2
The Spindle Motor in a Seagate Drive is Mounted to the hard drive assembly! So
what this means is you now have to remove the platters and you need a whole
new matching hard drive assembly to remount the drives platters.
This is a major problem as Hard drives have gotten bigger in density but not in
size, so the are very delicate.
These Platters are sensitive to dust as well as containing delicate components
easily damaged by static electricity, so opening these drives on your desk and
attempting to loosen the drives spindle by putting screwdrivers or sharp objects
in the vacant screw holes will only damage the platters components and of
course the famous slip from whatever tool you are using to cause a great scratch
on the surface of the platters... once again I have seen this many times.
Problem #3
Balancing and Alignment of the Platters are Crucial to any recovery so do not
disturb there original position for any reason or you might as well bin the drive.
These Platters need to be taken out as a set without being disturbed.
Problem #4
The read write heads are now stuck to the platter of the drive! What this means
is read write heads are not designed to touch the platter of the drive, But there
is a park area on the platter for the drive to land on when turned off, this area
has many tiny holes to prevent the heads from sticking to the surface of the
platter. what our problem is with a hard drive that is jammed is removing these
heads from the drive with out touching the platter of the drive, remember the
platters are stuck... they do not move so any attempt to slide the heads off will
result in the heads sticking to the platters and altering the heads alignment as
well as possible platter damage.
These Jammed Seagate Spindle Motors are a very serious problem, If your hard
drive is stuck or not spinning or making a slight grinding noise and you suspect
that it is jammed...
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Clicking Noisy Hard drive
On the Side of the Base of most hard drives is a sticker that collects any
contaminants when it comes to dust or the fatal head crash
Head crash is a term used for describing when the read\write heads make
contact with the hard drives platters causing scratches or ditches damaging the
platters clean smooth surface, in a lot of cases this will remove all the ceramic
coating of the platter leaving a see through glass and platter dust
(THIS IS DEEMED UNRECOVERABLE)
As you can see this HDD has had a severe head crash
NOTE if you remove the sticker and it appears to be clean, there is still a
possibility of a fine scratch that has not caused any platter dust for the sticker to
pick up, but most importantly if it is clean Do NOT REMOVE the top of the drive
on your desk and if you do, use a can of compressed air to keep the platters
clean before putting the top back on.
If you put power the HDD and you here a beeping sound, this would normally
indicate that the spindle motor is jammed
Please see the Common Faults page in relation to this article.
Under any circumstances should you undo the screws or remove the platters of
the HDD
Demonstrated Below is how balanced the platters are: note the plugs in the
spindle motor
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This is much like getting your tires balanced this is a counter weight to enable
clean rotation of the HDD Platters, this alignment needs to stay intact for any
hope of HDD repairs
This will most likely be a power failure of the PCB and the PCB is drawing more
power than what the whole computer needs to boot, Chance of repair is high but
parts can be an issue
Smell the HDD PCB, if the Drive smells bad then it has had a power Surge and
you need to check for obvious physical damage to the PCB
Learn step by step how to repair laptop motherboard by American Trained Engineer
http://www.laptoprepairtrainingcollege.com
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