Agilent BERT 86130A - dead HDD, looking for a transplant image

[ZBIQ]

Hi guys,

My old Agilent BERT i hear "clicking of death" in its HDD. This unit uses specially designed Windows NT and such files are nowhere to be found. Maybe somebody has access to such equipment and is willing to help me?

Anyhow, right now I try to save the old HDD, but no luck so far. Therefore having a copy form another BERT is the easiest option for me. In return I can offer some parts from N4906A, like input/output heads or RF connectors.

Cheers,
Matuesz

[m k]

You must open the drive.
Try to be dust free.

Center of plates have screws that you can use for pushing.
Be ready to pull your tool back.
I've used tweezers.

Just twist the center a bit and the drive will most likely start rotating again.
Close the clover and backup the image.

[fzabkar]

Just twist the center a bit and the drive will most likely start rotating again.

Clicking implies that the spindle motor is spinning and the heads are seeking.

[m k]

It depends.

Spinning spindle is not clicking, speed is too high.
Heads going too far is a major sound.
Heads going nowhere can be a minor sound.
Not solidly jammed spindle is clicking, it's constantly stalling.

3.5" drive is more loud than 2.5" drive.
Jammed 2.5" spindle may need an ear to cover before sound can be heard.
3.5" heads going too far can be felt through the cover by hand.

If drive is spinning but heads are not leaving the base the lock may be jammed.
If so then power off and release the plastic lock.

[ZBIQ]

Thanks m k,

I followed your instructions and opened the HDD. The motor, however was not stuck, but before opening it I could hear some rattling noise when shaking the hdd in my hand. There is some mechanism/hinge close to the magnets/head axle. I don't know, what's it purpose, but it turn out, that this little guy makes some rattling nose. I don't know whether it is broken or not, but after closing the lid the HDD makes the same clicking noise.

I tried to connect it to my other PCB via adapter and it even tried to mount two new drivers, but reading any content is not possible.

Mateusz

[fzabkar]

There is some mechanism/hinge close to the magnets/head axle.

It sounds like the latch. It's purpose is to retain the headstack in the parking position. Some drives will actually have a warning on the label to the effect that rattling when shaken is normal for that drive.

[ZBIQ]

Ok, I made some progress!

First, I opened the HDD and took out the latch mechanism - is it supposed to be taken out freely with tweezers? Strange... I made a dust cover and tried to spin it one more time. And this time I was able to mount two drives! Wow, that was a huge surprise. I look around and found calibration data, which I would say is a 50 % of successes. Now if I get new HDD image, I will copy my files.

But, before that, I wanted to clone this HDD. With many different freeware programs. No luck this time, as the HDD started to read and then parked multiple times. So my previous fix was either a luck, or I accidentally made head/disks alive once again. Nevertheless, I kept trying and almost paid 30 $ for software which can skip bad sectors during copying.

But, once again I was lucky and found DDrescue with GUI for 5 pounds. With this guy I rescued 270 MB reading forward and around 6 GB backwards! Not bat I would say, but now HDD seems completely dead, just like in the beginning. So now I will open the lid once more time and try to do "my magic". I mean I will open and close it. Maybe later on I will blast some air from can. Will see.

All in all, I am quite happy with all the steps I done. Also quite surprised how durable HDD might be. Cheers

[m k]

Every time you open the drive you are closer to total crash.
Extra particles are the thing, not the actual opening.

When drive is spinning down its heads are parked.
After that heads are locked to landing zone.

If heads are parked over the disk plate don't try to move them.
Special guide is needed first.

If there is a ramp and heads are off the plate you can move the pack a bit, a small bit, when figuring out how locking mechanism operates.
Better see some good videos instead.

Last resort is starting to hit the drive, but that's pretty final.
Not much force is needed for stuck headlock, but jolting impact must be correctly timed.

[ZBIQ]

Hi,

I eventually ended up with buying HDD from ebay for 100$, but at least now I have BERT booting "New" HDD is also making some clicking noises, but it is in a way better conditions. It has only 150 MB of unreadable area, but allows BERT to work. I did a full copy of the HDD to SSD, but this copy seem to be unstable. Sometimes BIOS changes its signature and then WIN NT won't boot. I bought a small SSD (20 GB), maybe my 500 GB SSD makes the old Widnows unhappy. Nevertheless, most of the time my device boots and works nicely It shows that calibration has expired, but I don;t care much about it.

Few remarks:
- there is 16 MB flash memory in BERT where all the calibration data is kept. So no worries, broken HDD will not void the calibration,
- I had to switch off the floppy driver in BIOS as this is UHD floppy and error was appearing every boot,
- write me PM if you need OS like me.