Although he indicates the WD Black has failed, he describes the failure precisely: it "just spins up, clicks a few times and spins down". Also, he says only some of the family photos stored on this drive were backed up. He further mentions "another identical drive bought at the same time that can be used for spares if necessary", then he wants to know what he should do next. This second drive is a better offer than most people realise, and we want to explain why before simply accepting it. A donor's replacement part needs to be very similar in order to meet all requirements: not just the model number but also the same generation/family, same firmware version, and compatible head maps. Two drives that were both purchased at the same time (from the same batch) have a much better chance of being a good match for each other than one purchased from a different source, years later.
| Media | A Western Digital Black 4TB that comes to life, makes clicking noises then goes back to sleep and holds family photos, with only part of them backed up somewhere else. |
| Reported situation | WD Black 4TB · failed · starts up, makes some clicking sounds, shuts down · holds the family photo collection, only partially backed up · the owner has an identical drive bought at the same time, offered for spares, and would like to know what he can do next. |
| Fault class | Head failure. The drive will reach full speed but the heads will be unable to read. The firmware recognises that there are no readable tracks available and parks the heads and turns off the power in order to prevent damage. The family photos are still located on the platters. Further powering the drive could be dangerous. A correctly matched donor head assembly is required. |
| Equipment used | Once the cycle was described we did not power the drive further · we used a bench supply which limits the current flowing through the drive and were able to characterise the startup, clicking noise and shutdown sequence · we opened the drive on our head-swap bench and examined it under stereo magnification, checked the owner's identical drive for suitability first, then fitted a matched donor head set and set the alignment · we imaged it using DeepSpar over a PC-3000 UDMA and rendered the photos to check them. |
The full diagnostic cycle occurs as follows: first the drive spins up, or comes to operating speed; secondly, the heads are loaded and click as they try to find their servo pattern; then thirdly the heads cannot locate the servo pattern; and finally after a predetermined number of failed attempts to locate the servo pattern, the firmware will park the heads in a safe position and turn off power to the motor. That is an orderly failure, and a drive that shuts itself down is doing less damage than one that grinds on.
Next, the donor question will be addressed because this is the most relevant portion for our purposes, since he brought up the subject and is likely to get the most out of this information. A head assembly is not a generic replacement part. To replace a head assembly requires an equivalent head assembly from a drive of the same family and generation, having the identical firmware revision level and head configuration as the original drive. And even then the adaptive data that existed on the original board must remain with the original drive. As such, when customers buy "the same model" online they are usually buying a product which has had significant revisions to its internal design and yet retains the same model number on the label. A drive purchased at the same time as the failed unit (and there's a good chance both units came from the same production run) is by far the best place to start looking for a suitable donor, though not a certainty.
In the meantime, it will still be assessed rather than assumed, and if it does not match, a proper donor is sourced instead. So how should you proceed? Simply put; turn off both drives, don't test the good drive by transferring files onto it, and send them together as they are. When your photos arrive back, the partial backup is the thing to fix, since this entire enquiry was based on one copy of some pictures being the only copy.
It wasn't going to be run anymore; we'd determined our problem via that previously described cycle. We characterised the spin up, click, and spin down cycle of the drive using a current-limited bench power supply. The drive was opened on the head-swap bench and viewed under a stereo microscope. The customer had an identically configured drive which was assessed to determine if it would be suitable for donor parts based upon drive family, firmware version, and head type. Once a matched donor head assembly was installed and the heads were aligned, imaging occurred through DeepSpar behind a PC-3000 UDMA while photographs were rendered prior to being placed on new media.
Head assembly was swapped for a matched donor one on the head-swap bench. Drive was imaged, photos were recovered from it to new media. This filled the gap left by the partial back-up. Diagnostic was free. Amount that followed was fixed and written, plus VAT. Since the drive needed to be opened, half this amount was paid in advance toward the donor parts and use of the workbench. Balance would only have to be paid once recovery was confirmed. Using his own genuinely suitable donor also lowered what was paid for parts, which isn't always the case but was here.
Leave the unit turned off. The process that has occurred is a drive reaching full speed, being unable to read and parking, and every iteration will put heads which cannot read back onto the surface where your images are stored. If you purchased the exact same model at the same time, do not attempt to exchange parts between units; however do tell us about it (i.e. "I have another unit like this"), since a unit from the same batch is a far better choice of parts source than a used unit with the same model name purchased at a later date, and it could save you money on the parts portion of your quote. Get a quote first, then send in both drives, turned off, and packaged so that no part can move. Also, consider the partial backup as the true lesson of the experience. One copy of something does not constitute a backup. It represents a single point of failure with photos on it.
Every case file here is written up from a real enquiry handled for households and businesses across Norwich and Norfolk, anonymised so that nobody is identifiable. Each sets out the reasoning behind the diagnosis and the method used on that particular fault, with the equipment named.
Intermittent is not lucky, it is a countdown — and the silence at the end of it is the motor or the heads
Two noises, two facts: the whir says the motor is fine, the click says the heads are not
Spinning is not the same as ready — a drive with damaged structures never gets as far as introducing itself
Diagnosis costs nothing and takes up to 2 working days from arrival, the quote is fixed in writing, and on logical work you only pay if we recover your data. Start online or ring the freephone.