the head in my 3GB barracuda 3.5hdd keeps seeking. when I opened the drive, I found what appears to be gray very fine dust. was that from the filter? how can I fix the heads. Not even sure if data can be recovered, the disk looks like the head dug into it in one spot. wonder if that is the dust I seen. suggestions? tried to upload a clip but wouldn't allow it.
Sorry for being a party pooper now... but...
That drive is to 90% a goner..
and as you open the drive and you dont know what to do is even worse..
if you put your fingers on the disk plates without protecting gloves on, then its even worse then worse.
No the heads is not possible to repair.. it is possible to disassemble the hard-drive to clean out the dust, that is from the heads and the damaged disk plate you saw and then put in new heads from an donor hard drive that is identical to the broken one, and then maybe be able to clone out the data to another disk.
This is nothing you even should attempt on your own if you never have done it before and the data on the disk is really-really-really important..
There is a reason why Data recovery is expensive as you need equipment, knowledge and new donor disks to take spare parts from(as damaged platters can some times demand you need several sets of heads to replace with, when the new head will be damaged again when it goes over the damaged surface).
Edit.
Sorry for not having better news.
You can wait and see if anyone else is saying something different, but they will most likely agree with what i just said.. Sorry.
HDDs are dust proof.. Not even nano particles can get inside. If you had opened the HDD to examine the heads and the plattters even a good working HDD is a goner and should go to a professional data recovery agency with a clean room facility to clean it and try data recovery.
If on opening you found a lot of grey dust, it should be the particles from the magnetic layer on the platters. All your data has already been shed and pulverised into powder. It is not a 90% goner but 100% goner. It is dead as a dodo. Just forget about it and get going.
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