The disk arrived to us after the user decided to replace the read/write head assembly themselves. As a result, we found two large greasy fingerprints on the surface and a lost magnet mounting screw (there are multiple micro-damages on the surface). Naturally, the user attempted to power on the “repaired” disk.

In order to partially recover significant data, three donor disks were required. Due to the described damages, it was not possible to read data from the first platter.

In the final result, 43.2% of the data was recovered, and we restored the majority of the important files.

P.S. Dear users, every action you take significantly increases the risk of permanent data loss. More precisely, the data will remain on the disk, but it will become impossible to recover. As in this case, most likely, just one donor disk would have sufficed from the start, and all necessary files could have been recovered.