"Norm Dresner" wrote in message
...
I have two "identical" 1.2GB Western Digital HDs and one has just died.
I've talked to one professional data recovery company and they quoted me
$1100-$1500 for the 1.2GB MS-DOS HD -- I think my data was valuable -- but
I
also think that I've got most of the source code stored on it distributed
around a half-dozen other computers around here and at work so I'm going
to
pass on that route.

I could possibly do a board transplant to see if the drive died because of
the electronics or not and if it did, I could recover the data.

I'm an aerospace engineer with EE & CS degrees with 30+ years experience
so
electronics and repairing equipment is no real scary prospect, but I've
never done this kind of work before and I was looking for some guidance as
to whether it's
a) unscrew + unplug, then reverse the procedure
b) (a) + some minor unsoldering
c) You'd better have your own factory and clean room

TIA
Norm


Your mileage may vary, I've had success swapping the boards on 1gig Conner
drives years ago, in this case swap the board and try, worst case it'll just
not work.