Help recovering data from dead drive

I have some experience recovering data from drives that click and power down or have stopped spinning altogether. I have a WD800 EIDE Caviar that was made in October 12, 2004. The data on it is very important to me, but I can’t afford to spend a thousand dollars to send it to a data recovery company like Kroll OnTrack. I’ve tried “freezing” it with no success. I’ve been trying to locate a PCB for it, but I’ve heard that since manufacturers often change the logic on them it must be one from nearly the same date, revision, and batch of the one I have. Is it possible to get old boards from WD itself, or will they just want to sell me their own data recovery service. Over the years I’ve opened tons of dead drives (my first one way back in 1981 - yes, before most current “experts” were born). I don’t pretend to be an expert, but learning to be careful, I haven’t found taking them apart or removing and replacing reading heads or actuators all that difficult. Is it possible to fashion a head that would read any platter from any drive, or is one pretty much stuck with using a similar drive to switch out parts? What is the best approach? Of course, before opening one up, I’d rather try a new circuit board. I used to freak about the “clean room” requirement, but I’ve fashioned relatively clean “boxes” and found that if you don’t wait around a long time once you open them, you are able to get significant amounts of data. Always there’s some corruption or loss. I’m sure it would be much more important if you were trying to get working program files or images, but most documents are recoverable well enough to get enough usable stuff to prevent total loss disasters. Please, any guidance will be deeply appreciated, even a possible source for old boards. I don’t even see any old WD800 EIDE’s around.

I, too, am an old guy from around your vintage. I started with Control Data BK7 SMD drives in 1981.

However, HDD technology has come a long way since then. Head technology, in particular, changes very quickly. We went from R/W coils to MR (magnetoresistive), then to GMR (Giant MR), and now to perpendicular recording.

So, to answer your question, there is no universal head in WD’s drives.

In fact, to determine whether a donor drive is compatible, you need to refer to the DCM (Drive Configuration Matrix).

See http://forum.hddguru.com/western-digital-what-dcm-t6488.html

That said, you haven’t told us the exact problem with your drive. If it doesn’t spin up, or attempt to spin up, then the PCB is most probably faulty. Alternatively, if it clicks, then the cause is most likely internal.

If you data is important and you’d better to send to specialists or you can refter to this guide: How to find a matching pcb for your dead drive

Note: Hard drive failures are NOT always caused by circuit board failure.