"buddd" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I have a what I believe to be a physically damaged hard drive with
data on it. (My guess it is the heads). When I turn the drive on, one
hears a knocking sound for about 30 seconds and then the drive
automatically shuts off.

The data on the drive is not important enough to pay a professional to
fix it, and software recovery tools won't work.

I would like to take the opportunity to open and try repairing the
disk myself (as a learning process).

Any suggestions / recommendations?

Yes, just forget about this project and move on to your next project.