Western Digital Head Swap: Full Recovery Walkthrough
A 40-minute, start-to-finish walkthrough of replacing a failed head stack assembly on a Western Digital drive. Covers identifying the failure type, selecting and verifying a compatible donor, clean bench disassembly, installation, and the first power-on test.
Identifying the Failure and Matching a Donor
The drive in this case clicks on power-up and immediately powers down. This makes it a good candidate for a head stack assembly swap; the platters themselves are likely undamaged.
Donor matching on WD drives requires more than the same model number. The video covers the specific criteria: micro-jog parameters (calibration values for head positioning), preamp vendor and revision, head type, drive family (Green, Red, Blue, Purple use different heads at similar capacities), manufacturing date (within three months is ideal), and capacity. The first donor attempt in this video produced clicking, indicating a mismatch. The second donor with better micro-jog compatibility worked.
The Physical Swap Process
The video shows the full removal sequence on our clean bench: removing the T6 Torx bracket screws, installing the head comb to keep heads separated, pulling the actuator magnet with pliers (held by magnetic force only, no screws), removing the stopper pin, and extracting the assembly using tweezers on the corner pull tab.
One detail the technician emphasizes: the rubber damper between the head stack and the housing. If the old damper stays stuck to the housing when you remove the patient's assembly, and the donor assembly brings its own damper, you end up with two rubber layers stacked. The assembly will not seat correctly. Peel the old one off before installing the donor.
The donor assembly goes through the same disassembly process. Before installation, sliders are inspected under magnification for cracks or surface irregularities. The donor assembly is inserted into the patient housing, the actuator magnet is reinstalled, and the bracket is secured. The technician verifies the actuator arm moves smoothly before attempting to power on.
First Power-On
The moment of truth. A smooth spindle hum and actuator positioning sounds mean success. Clicking or grinding means misalignment, donor incompatibility, or damaged sliders; power off immediately. In this case, the first donor clicked. The second donor spun up cleanly and was detected.
Head swap is the prerequisite, not the recovery itself. Once the drive is recognized, data extraction happens through PC-3000 or equivalent specialized hardware using adaptive imaging with error correction.
Clicking WD Drive? We Have the Donors on the Shelf.
Our Austin lab stocks WD Green, Red, Blue, and Purple donor drives for head stack replacements. Cleanroom bench, PC-3000 hardware, and a no-data no-fee policy.