data on old drives. There was this 2002 10GB drive going to be junked.
Just for fun i opened it and let it run for a while in my very dusty
shack, doing some copy and chkdsk actions. No problems seen in event
log, although i guess i should have tried some SMART tools to read out
the health status.


I agree - give it a try. Whatever happens you will learn something and
if you keep us informed, so will we.

I have run a defective travelstar for a few hours with the top off. It
does kill the drive in the end, but you might have enough time to get
some data off.

To change the heads you will almost certainly have to dismantle the
disc stack and remove the head assembly from its mounting.

Before doing anything so drastic, are you sure that the control pcb has
not been damaged? You could try swapping that first before opening the
drive housing.

John