Hard Drive Platter Removal Cleaning and Realignment

Our technical team have recently completed a R&D program that has successfully facilitated the removal and repositioning of disk platters installed in high capacity small format hard drives. These hard drives have two or more disk platters installed in close proximity making inspection and access impossible. This development will now allow the inspection and removal of head crash debris and contamination following catastrophic situations such as fire and flood.

Platter Cleaning and Realignment

This R&D program has involved months of effort in designing new high precision tooling and expert cleaning processes. Testing programs and successful field trials have ensured that the new designs, processes and technology are now fit for purpose in our data recovery and digital forensic services portfolio.

Multi-Platter. Multi Head Illustration

Modern format non -volatile magnetic recording media (platters) from hard disk drives have areal densities of upwards and beyond 100,000 concentric recording tracks. Read and Write operations that involves the positioning of a minute ceramic head over an individual track can rightly be described as a pinnacle of precision control industry science. Considering hard disk drives now invariably use multiple platters as illustrated, and you have an appreciation of the challenges that our technical team had to overcome.

Datlabs Data Recovery Services Portfolio Applications .

The Datlabs team firstly determined that the investment in development was necessary to address the growth in new to market high capacity drives that use new patterned media technology in multi-platter hard disk assemblies. When the mechanical components (usually head stack assemblies) in these hard drives fail they invariably leave debris and foreign particulates on the top surface, between platters and on the underside of platters. Prior to the application of our technology the presence of this debris would preclude the examination and successful replacement of the failed head assembly. Now with this new technology, debris can be removed from both sides of platter surfaces, platters restored to a pristine condition, realigned and reassembled into a working HDA. Once this procedure has been undertaken then damaged read write heads can be replaced, the drive tested and data successfully rescued and transferred to a new hard drive.

Datlabs Digital Forensic Services Portfolio Applications.

The forensic examination of hard drives involved in criminal and insurance loss investigations typically with challenging circumstances illustrated below are an ideal application for our new technology.

As an example : CCTV and surveillance installations use high capacity hard disk drives as a part of their DVR. In the event of Arson Attacks they sustain not only heat damage but serious water and contaminate ingress resulting from the efforts of the fire services large volume high pressure hoses.