scotstrickland
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How to remove platters from 2.5" HDD
How do I remove the platters from a laptop hard drive? There is a spindle screw but it will not seem to break loose. I need to swap the platters to another drive to recover data. Any tips/tricks appreciated.
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They probably won't be cheap anymore, as the drive's casing is already open. They might not be able to do it at all as they might not have the necessary hardware to get data from a drive already opened in not "cleanroom" environments, there might now already be too much mechanical damage to the drive. The second point they mention is not to open the casing...
Any attempt to disassemble the drive is doomed not only to your personal failure, but to make any subsequent attempt by a professional data recovery service impossible. You can not improve the situation in any way by opening the drives, and from your question, it's clear that you have no idea what the consequences of that would be. Just as one example, the fact that the heads are over the same track on both platters at the same time occurs because the tracks are created after the platters are assembled on the spindle. If you losen things, that alignment is irrecoverably lost forever, and there will never be any chance of data recovery.
The one and only thing that you can do, that might help, would be to replace the circuit board with an identical board from another drive, if the problem is on the circuit board. And even that has pitfalls that are not obivios, because on many drives there are proms on those circuit cards that are custom programmed for that particular drive, and that won't work on any other drive because some characteristics of every individual drive are absolutely unique. If the problem is inside the HDA (the head disk assembly), only a data recovery service or manufacturer (with access to clean rooms, parts, and non-user test fixtures) will possibly be able to recover the data.
If the screw doesn't come loose it could be that it is threaded "the other way", or it was sealed with a locking compound when the stack was assembled, or it was tightenend to a very high torque. Unfortunately, the solution is either to try turning the screw the other way or applying more force. Make sure you have a good screwdriver of the exaxt size and shape required and one that has a good handle.
/RID