Western Digital hard drive data recovery: heads swap

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DO NOT OPEN YOUR OWN DRIVE IF YOU NEED DATA OFF OF IT AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF IF YOU WILL RUIN IT: YOU WILL RUIN IT. DO NOT OPEN OTHER PEOPLE'S DRIVES UNLESS THEY CONSENT TO YOU SCREWING IT UP BEFOREHAND.
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[@JarethGarza]

"Abra-ka-focus?" "That's not it..." "Focus you fuck." "Heh heh heh..."

[@IanGlockner]

It's "Focus you fack" heheh.

[@malachi3438]

8:07 timestamp

[@Pan_Yankess]

made me laugh at loud xD

[@northwindx79]

Seagate is the shittiest disk i have ever used. cant reach to the quality of WD>

[@russellszabadosaka5-pindin849]

North Lord : Seagate SUCKS. I’ve lost 3 Seagate HDs to hardware failure since 1998, most recently in 2015 (at least that last one was duped). I finally learned my lesson, never again.

[@mastercode35]

Every Tech's, IT's, CS's go to phrase when something does not go according to plan: "Hmm, interesting."

[@Fixepedia]

That's true 😂 but I usually say "that's weird'

[@MiGujack3]

Eventually it becomes "what the fuck happened this time" Speaking from experience.

[@KarryKarryKarry]

That’s because it IS interesting and you’re already completely disconnected from the rest of the world thinking, hard, about potential screw ups.

[@emailfilters]

Right. We wouldn't still be doing the job if it weren't "Interesting. . ."

[@sadhlife]

to be fair it is interesting

[@djmystery7235]

Anyone else get a lot of stress when he flew his tweezers right near the platter?

[@MELL09494]

Yessssssssss

[@rossmanngroup]

The case was already solved, plus who doesn't like playing with these large fidget spinners!

[@djmystery7235]

Louis Rossmann make a fidget spinner out of platters.

[@Luwinkle]

Of course his drive guy is another buff italian dude, lol.

[@esra_erimez]

Wait, Louis is Italian?

[@robertsistrunk6631]

There are absolutely no Italians in NYC

[@billbelzek6748]

Fuggatabuddat

[@RiccardoMazzia]

What's the problem with Italians?

[@billieirish5451]

@@supra107 ur obviously not from new York

[@rich22221]

Swinging tweezers like a mad man.

[@rossmanngroup]

This was a done recovery, of course I would never put tweezers anywhere near the platters on a live case! --Steve

[@BillAnt]

Gotta put that in a disclaimer, to avoid giving your beloved fans heart attacks. ;D

[@weefreeman22]

We need more data recovery videos.

[@billbelzek6748]

I wanna see how to data recovery an SSD !!

[@weefreeman22]

@@billbelzek6748 Same though, that's something I've never actually seen done or really talked about tbh

[@computersrepaircotesaint-l7407]

@@weefreeman22 Replacing heads is one thing, Learning and buying tools for SA and software is another. Hope to see videos to unlock SA on newer drive

[@DavinciWhite]

Yes!

[@RichardCMongler]

the data recovery mafia would probably burn down his shop if he shows too much

[@rossmanngroup]

Don't forget to check out the blooper reel on the live channel here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHm7pYNjg7udis0 While you're at it, the live channel features any random thing I feel like uploading or streaming at any given time, so if you want to follow me on bike rides, restaurants, rants, whatever... check it out there.

[@wobblysauce]

Nice, I have repair/got data off a number of drives, just used my known good took the data of it and turned it into a donor, as I normally get multiple of the same drive at the same time. No clean area... just on my desk, replaced boards motors and heads.

[@fransezomer]

really cool video!!!

[@cataria3903]

louis, u will love to hear, that western digital (seagate probs too) puts planned obsolescence in their drives. western digital sets up their consumer drives to have insane load/unload cycles like every 12 seconds for example. the heads are designed to only deal with a certain amount of load/unload cycles, 300000 for example. so having insane artificial load/unload cycles will result in people's drives having a much higher failure, than they actually should, meaning people get to throw more money on the 3!! only 3!!! hdd manufacturers of the world.... there is a tool to fix this bs on at least old wd drives called wdidle3, which fixed the issue on a friend's drive i got for free, not sure if that tool still works on modern drives. but isn't it lovely, that just like apple with their soldered onto motherboard ssds, hdd manufacturers don't give one fuck about consumers and go out of their way to get the drives kill themselves.

[@mc1412007]

Any one else almost have pannic attacks when he put sharp objects near and over the platters

[@hihi217]

I was scared that someone would have pulled onto the HDMI cable going to the camera inside the data recovery bench... the camera would have fallen onto the platters... :c

[@uncletoy774]

ummm no apparently hes do this before and I see that Louis does as well cause I didn't hear one word or even a squeak for him as well

[@BillAnt]

I pissed and sh*t myself, then had to clean it up... so yeah! xD

[@mirko.jankovic]

Louis I would love to see more videos of hard drive recovery, btw Steve nice work. Greeting from Europe!

[@p1st0ls44]

me too. its very interesting and hdd failure rate is pretty high. i think its like 1/10 drives fails after 5+ years. pretty interesting indead.

[@MidnightBloomDev]

You know someone has balls to stand against corporations when his name contains man

[@TheMeisterManuel]

Dat name n pic

[@dog2man1994]

He's the next evolution of man, he's the Mann.

[@ayuchanayuko]

The RossMann will free us

[@analogaudiorules1724]

@Yourname Here Are you brain damaged...

[@vkvo2000]

@@analogaudiorules1724 , his heads stuck on the platters...

[@rmmr8513]

WOWW!! That was fascinating!!! I would watch more hard drive recovery videos. Great job.

[@aceenterprise]

I would love to see more videos of Hard Drive recovery. There are some videos on KZbin that go over hard drive recovery, and most are incorrect, it's good to see someone who actually knows how to recover the hard drive from physical issues, not just "Put it in a ziploc bag, and stick it in the freezer for a few hours". More please! Steve, you did a great job!

[@rossmanngroup]

Thank You - Steve

[@emailfilters]

Steve, Very clear presentation with real time challenges. Louis, I appreciate your sensitivity to where things went wrong for Steve here; but, I must say that I learn as much or more when the unexpected occurs even in your videos as when all goes as expected. Sometimes an "It can be done" is all a man needs to have the confidence to move forward.

[@damonmueller4709]

It's crazy how much he sounds like you Louis. Fits perfectly with your channel. I'm about to do a procedure, this really came at the perfect time. Keep it up, you rock.

[@MrENT18]

Been waiting for this, glad its finally being done.

[@mitchk7676]

The quality of these videos is so good. Keep it up guys!!

[@NickyNightShine]

Too bad the quality of wd drives aren't as good.

[@rikvdmark]

Round of applause for Steve. I definitely learned something and hope to continue learning in the future. Now, on to the beeping drive video :)

[@darkaimusicvideo]

jeez you’re amazing guys. you got me passionate about this stuff altho Ive never been much into but all your stories and information is so much valuable

[@wlan246]

I store data on _pre-owned_ Seagate drives--but only in server racks under Raid 6, mirrored in multiple locations. So, thank you for doing your part to keep the supply of used Seagate HDDs high, and their prices low.

[@mygaffer]

At a shop I used to work at we tried this without benefit of a clean room and it actually worked. The drive lasted long enough to transfer the data off of as well! It was a last shot type of thing because the customer didn't want to pay the price that our clean room level parter (DriveSavers) charged.

[@raywebb2415]

Oh how this brings back memories. I like your head comb. I used to grab the head stack with tweezers by the slot located just behind the head comb. It may be easier than grabbing the heads from the top of the head screw. Most of the work we did was performed on a work bench then we imaged under a clean air booth. We used a black marker to identify "parts" drives and if any heads were bad, we would make note of it on the drive cover. The PC3000 has come a long way since I stopped recovering data. Good job!

[@sammorrow8420]

Nice to see a real professional at work thank you 😊

[@bitrot42]

** MIND BLOWN ** Amazing to see "practical data recovery" in action... Hope we get to see more in the future!

[@joshuahuman1]

Dual rubbers cause a lot of problems not just in hard drives

[@DDayDark]

oil filters come to mind.

[@joshuahuman1]

DDay is that all that comes to mind

[@B-a_s-H]

thats what she said...

[@kyriakos098]

Hard pee pee too

[@BungieStudios]

The extra friction can cause the rubber to tear preventing any seal.

[@rafaelaugustoflorezpinto5748]

Bravo!!!! Thanks for teaching folks how to mess with their data before sending it to us and making the cost of the recoveries higher!

[@Fexzz]

Him fidgeting around with the pliers right above the disk gave me the worst kind of anxiety!

[@bolon8200]

Thank you Steve an Louis for the video, good to learn about hard drives data recovery heads swaping.

[@TheSecurity16]

This has been educational and informative. Thanks Steve

[@rossmanngroup]

You're welcome :)

[@joebazooks]

this shit is absolutely fascinating. first time ive ever seen inside an hdd

[@TiborRoussou]

I rip them open often, usually for scrap ;)

[@Techieguy93]

Louis, I watch the ads all the way through at the beginning of videos so you can get the ad revenue. :D Thanks for all the work you do!

[@rossmanngroup]

You are a kind soul.

[@cuisined]

You are very interestiong to listen to and I enjoyed your walkthrough immensely! Great Job!!!

[@rossmanngroup]

Thank you! -Steve

[@Kyuunex]

Thanks for the educational video. In future, I would love to see a video on recovering from SSDs if possible.

[@antonhelsgaun]

That'd be interesting, although I'd think it's pretty much like any other board repair

[@Kyuunex]

@@antonhelsgaun I actually don't think so. I find it literally impossible to get schematics for some SSDs like ADATA ones.

[@antonhelsgaun]

@@Kyuunex oh yeah, that could be very true. I more meant the physical process

[@BillAnt]

Probably exponentially more difficult since you can't just physically install a donor head, everything is solid state poxy glued together.

[@TAILSORANGEs]

AWESOME STUFF... I can now start making my own mini workstation so that I can do data recovery for my EXTREMELY old hard drive (you know, the hard drives from 1999-2002)...

[@computersrepaircotesaint-l7407]

Awesome video Louis, The only channel that teach for real. It'll be nice if you can review other tools like MRT, DFL

[@gmscott9319]

29:50 "no more then 1 min." than, not then I love all of the work you do and all of the information you share to the community! HDD repair is a great addition to the channel, thank you!

[@Zipa7]

Love the video, can't wait to see more HD related stuff.

[@RGSABloke]

Top man Steve, learned lots and cleared up some mysteries.

[@CTCTraining1]

Well done Steve. Looking forward to more recovery videos in the future.

[@PedroThePanda64]

*BUT LOUIS THE GENIUS BAR SAID NO*

[@gg-gn3re]

genius bar can't change a coffee let alone hard drive parts

[@BillAnt]

Even changing the coffee filter is Steve's Job. ;D

[@GCGeekArmy]

Nice AvE reference for camera focus

[@ciarfah]

GC Geek Army Focus you Fack!

[@Hunter-jj9uj]

Thank you Louis for having Steve show us and school us on HDD repair and recovery. I know he's busy, but you need to keep on his ass to make more videos! (sorry steve, please take that as a compliment of your royal hdd guruness!

[@Shytzedaka]

Thank you Louis! highly Educational And useful! i always wondered how to do this.

[@PaulHanley]

I watched this last night and my Seagate external hard drive failed this morning. I think you jinxed me man.

[@ClearComplexity]

Poor Steve, I think anyone who has ever tried to record anything after checking it works ok before has had what was a working result suddenly turn into a confusing not working one. Lol at the domain at the end, good one Louis, very subtle.

[@tokeeptrackofrandomsubs5899]

That harddrive was opened more carefully than the last two dead harddrives I opened, but I was only interested in taking the magnets out to be honest and to destroy the platters prior to disposing of them. Good to see a demonstration of how to open them carefully if I ever have to in the future.

[@harrisonbrown8065]

Really interesting to see steve prefers WD. Over here in the UK our shop sees so many WD drive failures in 2.5" laptop drives within the first 2 years, more often than toshiba or seagate. We replace with seagate and hardly ever get a return. I will probably get roasted for saying this but this is our honest experience. I really liked this video, more please!

[@BungieStudios]

We ordered a batch of 30 Seagate hard drives for a NAS trying to save money. 1/5 drives were DoA. Three of the working drives failed within six months. Two of the six replacements for the DoA drives also failed within a month. I've also bought Seagate as a cheap backup only to have it fail before the drive I was backing up. Maybe the drives in your inventory like you or something or I broke too many mirrors as a kid.

[@Bramble20322]

Most likely the customers you give seagates to simply dont come back... to YOUR place. Specially if the shit seagate drivers end up failing again some time after.

[@aginghermit]

Was a great first vid to explain some aspects of a HDD well done

[@ezioauditore4120]

This is a very good video. As long I can get my files and data I'm good. Even if the HDD goes out as long as the files are retrieved that should be it. Please have more of these videos and about data recovery process and the software used. I thought I will be needing special tools but it looks like the ones used here are available on the market or it is easily accessible. Again great video and yes I learned not only something but a lot. Keep it up guys. 💪😁☝

[@TheWazupian]

God I love my fresh cup of Rossman in the morning

[@chiyerano]

Thank you. This was interesting. I am sure things will get easier to film and post for this over time with practice. Looking forward to more.

Greetings from Brazil :) We are a small DR lab here. Very nice video, like allways :)

[@DCRband]

This video was very fun to watch. You gained a subscriber here. thanks

[@PowderMill]

"double rubbers" at 3:20 THANK YOU LOIUS!

[@mspaint1011]

amazingly informative, thank you so much!

[@TECHHUBfixitup]

Very good explanation,awesome,thanks for uploading.

[@timothystark4475]

Very interesting! I learned a lot about data recovery because I have a few of my hard drive that failed.

[@patrick888881]

Keep it up! Love the content!

[@AmuckPVP]

*Great video & now I'm intrigued about SSD recovery.*

[@manolisgledsodakis873]

The heads are really tricky to find. I can't find them in mine. Nor the magnet. :(

[@emilalmberg1096]

Have seen hard disk films hundreds of times. This is the first time I get real hard facts!

[@DanielsGameVault]

Thanks. Awesome series. Definitely make more recovery vids ! :D

[@xelm_]

thank you very much for this informative video.. im a windows guy so this does wonders for me!

[@peraruor]

Excelent video! Thanks. However it came to my mind, what can you do if the drive some body bring for service is so old that you can't find donor HDD?

[@PHamster]

So basically you don’t want “Fan Spin” for this case

[@palladinwebb6135]

"No-o-0-o! No fan spin".

[@Pr0fPyr0]

Was super interesting to see this done

[@machinainc5812]

I never thought i’d enjoy watching a data recovery video lol

[@TedTabaka]

I am confused, but would love to learn more! More videos!

[@darkmojojojo]

Thank you for posting this.

[@PackardBelltoll]

I like my 7 plus hitachi drives have been in my pc since 2009 and still rocking in 2019.Best mechancial hard drives Ive ever owned was a hitachi

[@ShiroKage009]

Given some of the clients those dates recovery centers take on and how valuable their data is, added to the volume and the number of stations platters might have to move between, I'm guessing they do need those environments. At the very least, the reduction in risk makes monetary sense.

[@TiborRoussou]

Definitely learned something; thanks guys :)

[@roberto531351]

I love the video because it shares your experience like luis rosseman and that counts a lot since you find other vidios where people do not share their experience and only show you a part of the process

[@SMArtMetalArt]

Great video! Thanks a lot. Anything special about Helium drives there to take into account?

[@kek1758]

Hardy G yeah, you have to refill the damn thing with helium After disassembling the drive. Watch the Drive Savers Video over at the LTT Channel, they explained it.

[@Fee.1]

Hitatchi/Samsung made the absolute ultimate drives imo, WD now uses their tech after buying them

[@alexderpyracc4053]

Wasn't hitatchi a screwdriver drill manufacturer?

[@DaveRepairs]

Well done Steve.... fascinating stuff

[@rossmanngroup]

Thank You - Steve

[@Danthrax66]

HGST/Hitachi drives made by WD seem to be a lot more reliable than other models.

[@dimitris_verlis]

HGST Drives are garbage :p

[@analogaudiorules1724]

@@dimitris_verlis 😂 You probably don't know what you're talking about if you say that. I have a few hgst's with about 50,000 hours on them over the past 5 years, especially the one in my laptop, never had a single issue.

[@analogaudiorules1724]

wd did finally fully absorb hgst not too long ago, though they were the parent company for several years before the full merge took place, so now hgst's Drive Technologies are fully being Incorporated into wd's current lineup so we're actually going to see two of the best drive manufacturers ever create some beautiful products in the next few years. I am still saddened they wont be making hgst stuff stand alone anylonger, im sure wd's new line up will be better then ever because of their tech. I wish they would of stayd separate companies at the end of the day, HGST really did have the best hard drives.

[@dimitris_verlis]

Wow, my HGST Drives ate failing again and again, I don't know if my luck was bad or not...

[@analogaudiorules1724]

@@dimitris_verlis its all good man, thats probably the case, no manufacturer is perfect, I recommend you check out hard disk Sentinel, which will give you real-time updates on your hard drives temperature read write error rate, spin up spin down count, even power settings for your hard drive. itll give you a full s.m.a.r.t detaild report www.hdsentinel.com you should definitely check this out, it's saved my computers hard drives several times and my external hard drives as well, you can set specific values if your hard drives get too hot and you can have the program shut your computer down before any damage happens from heat, within the parameters you set. You can even do stress tests on your hard drives I could go on and on about how good this program is, I recommend you try the trial version and then buy the pro version eventually if you like it. Ive been using it personally for several years. Might be able to tell you whats wrong with your drives.

[@creativevisualsnewzealand6723]

Cool video guys! thank you

[@azurehydra]

Hmmm, interesting. hahahaha. Never admit failure or mistakes! Fantastic video! lol More data recovery please! This channel gets better everyday. :D

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

Some old hard drives could be surprisingly dust resistant. I had an old maxtor drive (i think, could have been a late micropolis but I don't think so) in a machine at the office. It was loud, really loud but as it was working and stuffed into a cupboard we didn't really care. I can't remember what it was used for, but it was kept in use for a long time. Eventually the machine was rendered obsolete and before scrapping I looked it over for usable parts. There wasn't much, but as I dug into it I suddenly felt air moving across my fingers, but there were no fan anywhere near. Turns out there was a large hole in the top cover of the HDD through which you could look directly at the edge of the platters. It had originally been covered with a sticker, but someone had peeled it off years ago. It was from this hole the air I felt was blowing. Covering it up with my finger made the drive sound like a normal HDD without that weird whooshing sound. So this drive had been working for more than five years with a hole about 12 by 4 millimeter in the top cover. And this machine was totally disgusting inside. I found it fascinating that it was working at all, so I kept it around to use for simple testing and it held up for several years of intermittent use and never lost a byte before it eventually ended up in the dumpster as it was simply to slow, to small, and as a IDE drive totally outdated for any practical use of any sort. Never did cover up that hole though, and I have no idea how it survived for so long.

[@ukraineolive3440]

How do you know both drives have the same headstack? Is that manufacturer disclosure? You didn't explain that.

[@garyslatter9854]

A fantastic job made to look easy...

[@chiren998]

Hell yeah! I need me more of these videos!

[@parkerbeck3580]

More hard drive recovery please! No serious techie owns a macbook. But we all own hard drives.

[@zoneb609]

whenever he ended with "hope you learn something" I thought it was louis

[@rab9583]

I was able to open up kind of broken HDDs in school just to see if I could fix them. I got tired on the first one. I made some pretty cool circular designs on the platter with a screwdriver though.

[@ffirstllast3328]

Awesome video,,,this was great!

[@mrlithium69]

The PC-3000 is the real hero here (and quite costly too). Its accessing the drive in special ways, reading the HDD System Area, internal ROM modules and all the calibration information, and other things. Just swapping heads + PCB and using ddrescue on linux would not result in as much success.

[@fidelhviegas]

Thanks for sharing this! You mentioned the preamp being damaged. Could that cause other PCBs to burn? I replaced a PCB to see if the disk would spin and it did, but then the PCB stopped working just like the original one. Could this be related to this same issue you have had with this drive?

[@texw4062]

16:35 How do you verify the similarities for your donor/patient? I really enjoyed this video. But that info is critical! The world needs to know! Thanks for the excellent VID

[@macntrash]

@@DrcTuberTechnical same here! is there another video where this is explained? cant live without it!

[@isaacboucher5147]

The Bob Ross of hard drive repair.

[@LastKnight0727]

Steve's contempt for seagate is the reverse for me and WD. I've had more failing WD drives in my shop than Seagate. We tend to use Seagates to replace failed drives.

[@Gizmo42Rodeo]

I've had the same experience.

[@remotesupport]

Seagates are the worst things on earth

[@iqinsanity]

I built a laminar flow hood to do tissue culture at home. Looks like I have another use for it now.

[@NaineshDesai]

Hello, Excellent Video , Can tell me what matching parameter for WD you use , I think DCM 4,5,6 character is required but Please confirm whether it is correct or not , or Full model no of WD is enough , you had taken 2 tb Donar for 1 tb patient drive , that is ok because dcm no might be matched . Please reply me.

[@y2ksw1]

I was doing this job for a long time 😊

[@fh8769]

Great video thanks. Where can I get one of those tools to separate the heads?

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

Thanks guys! I use a Toshiba 1T HDD for my backup. It has been working well.

[@PapaWheelie1]

Grab a second 1TB drive and offline back up occasionally

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

I always backup offline. I do not use cloud stuff if that is what you mean.

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

I normally optimize and backup 2 or 3 times a week. I take a lot of photos for repair articles that I write or when I work on a device. My HDD's have over 800G's already stored on them.

[@tastymonkey]

I backup locally to two locations that are not in the same system and one offsite via cloud encrypted of course.

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

tastymonkey That is wise. I am just a hobbyist so I don't worry about it that much.

[@gangaskan2255]

i thought double rubbers were always a good thing? well shit, the more you know.

[@ccssk8er123]

Double rubbers, in this particular situation not recommended

[@perplexed.wanderer]

Fantastic demonstration.!! Few questions : I own a WD 4TB My Passport Portable (Blue). It fell. It makes a clicking sound. Platter rotates & the sound & rotation stops in 6-7 seconds. The light on the HDD does flash throughout though. It’s not read by the laptop. Click of death situation. I’d like to try what you demonstrated. 1) How many platters does my hard disk have ? Want to know the answer to this before opening my drive. 2) I ask this because I need to buy comb as well accordingly. Any suggestions on this too? Thank you!!

[@JayOhm]

A couple questions here: 1. Do I get it correctly that it's basically a lottery whether each specific head works well enough after a replacement? Why so? Also, is there any head calibration data on the PCB/platters that needs to be copied from the donor? 2. Is it possible to grab all the data from the working heads before attempting another swap? Is it possible to feed the service data into the drive from the outside if head 0 happens to not work after a swap?

[@mrlithium69]

good questions. even as much as I know, I'm not sure. But everything you said sounds accurate. yes there is head calibration data and he seems to have skipped that part. yes you can swap once, read what comes, and swap again and hope for more. the donor drive was most likely not in perfect condition.

[@oleggritsev]

Generally, if you need to do everything correctly, you first need to load/replace to the test engineering firmware, leave only the translator in memory, disable hardware and software write process , logs, smart, expand the ECC processing and then check the operation of the preamplifier and check the MR element (state response) and read all the healthy heads. Then start reading the data on defective heads, and then if it required adjust the parameters of the reading MR current for better read the bad sectors by the degraded heads, and if you need after all replace the heads. The PC3000 does not support the new Seagate and Western Digital (hitachi PCB:LSI, Avago) models. To do this, use PC3000 plug-ins library (separate developers in data recovery community) or use factory utilities for obtain better results and in some cases to unlock the hard disk firmware. If someone needs help and recover data from 4-5-6-8-10-12-14 terabyte of disks, please contact me. We have factory tools from Seagate and WD, Sandisk.

[@mrlithium69]

Wow, yes! personally I think you know more than him :) the head calibration is missing from this video. I cant blame him though, its so complicated. A lot of the information I learned about hard drives came from badly translated Russian websites, so maybe you have an advantage :)

[@oleggritsev]

@@mrlithium69 Yes usually if heads was swapped it have close or worse reading parameters. And in most cases it reading slow or have some unreadable places. In this case need adjust only reading parameters in firmware, for this type WD in modules 40-4X. Or even better if there no surface damages start script from firmware to calibrate heads. it collect all new heads parameter by zone tables and then possible read all surface and data like it was with original heads. Also possible make reading auto correction much wider. Because maximum reading MR currend not exceeding 80% of maximum possible. many data recovery services have problems with heads swap and they usually thinking it heads not match. really if heads the same or even from later hard drive family then heads parameters have more difference than original. Some hard drive wich have one head reading trouble just enought made some correction for one head adaptives and this head can read data again. Some head have degradation (parameter shifting) during life cycle so it possible shift back to work point parameters and it can be read data again. Adaptives for write it is different part of firmware . we do not need it for data recovery process.