data recovery - Opening up and diagnosing a faulty 2.5'' hard drive

The laptop of a friend of mine ceased to function after being clumsily dropped to the floor. It had boot problems for a while (never getting to the O.S.) and then it stopped working altogether. Returning it is not an option, since it was bought overseas and no local support is provided. Data recovery firms are practically non-existent here, also.

My friend bought an SATA-to-USB adapter in order to recover the HD data, but it wasn't recognized either by the BIOS or by the O.S. Although it powers up, several mechanical noises can be heard and after a while they stop. Fearing the worst, we will now open it up and try to diagnose it. I'm prepared to make a mirror copy of the entire HD if and when we get it running.

Given the fact that we have zero experience in HD repairing, my inquiry to you is the following:

What are the the most common mechanical faults we should be looking for in this scenario?

In case it helps:

Picture of the drive

HD specs

UPDATE:

I could salvage no S.M.A.R.T. data prior to the crash.

It is not a good idea to use a SATA-to-USB adapter when trying to recover data from faulty hard disk mediums - a generic driver is used for such operations that only makes a small portion of the SATA protocol accessible.

You do not necessarily need a clean room to deal with internal HDD maintenance, but you will have higher chances of a successful recovery if it is performed in one.

If you can't read SMART, that means the heads can't reach the Service Area (SA). The mechanical noise you're hearing is likely to be the clicking related to the heads desperately trying to seek to the SA, but this might not be the case at all, just the most probable assumption depending on what you've described. Seagate drives actually have a serial TTL interface that can be used to debug issues with the drive, but you need to have the appropriate cable at your disposal for that, let alone be able to interpret the info it spits out.

You can try getting this drive to a working state by replacing the head stack off a drive with the same model and matching the production date as close as possible. There is no guarantee it will work, especially in your case of not having any practical experience. I haven't looked up your particular model, but I can see it's 500G, which means it probably has multiple platters - this is significantly harder to deal with, because you already have multiple heads to maintain / sync - it is not a walk in the park, a lot of things can go wrong, I do mean a lot. Also, depending on the model, you might need to dump the NVRAM of donor drive and re-flash on the target drive, as that might be a necessity (vital head stack related parameters might be stored there).

My advice - post on hddguru's forums asking for help and try searching for identicle cases before attempting anything.

Oh and - if it ever gets to a point of software recovery - ditch Windows for Linux (with an ntfs-3g driver, of course).

First and foremost, I do not recommend disassembling your hard drive in any way shape or form. As you indicated you and your friend have:

zero experience in HD repairing

This video gives you an idea of why this should only be done by a trained professional

Now that I have said that, it does sound like your HDD has been damaged. The click of death is never a good sound. Chances are the head has been damaged and possibly the platters themselves. Your in a bind as far as data recovery options are concerned. Even if you opened it up you would have to get the data off the platters manually since the HDD is physically damaged.

I believe it is recommended you do not try to recover the hard drive, because as you said "zero recovery experience.".

What are the the most common mechanical faults we should be looking for in this scenario?

According to this guide:

1. Head Fault

   This happens when one or more of the heads on the hard drive become damaged and no longer function properly. The heads are the parts of the hard disk that read and write data to the platter surface that store the data.

2. Damage to the Service Area

   The Service Area contains unique operating parameters of the hard drive and is stored on the disk's platter surface. Accessed when the drive is powered on, the data in the service area is used to initialise the drive so that it functions correctly.

3. Seized Spindle

   These usually only occur when the drive is powered on and knocked or dropped, a sudden jolt to the drive causes its spindle motor to seize. The disk becomes jammed and will no longer rotate (or rotate very slowly).

4. Stiction

   Stiction is a contraction of the words static and friction and occurs when friction of the moving parts of the hard drive generate sufficient static electricity to 'glue' one or more heads of the hard drive to the disk's platter surface. When this happens the drive stops spinning immediately and is no longer accessible or recognised by the computer.