---
title: "Data Recovery from an External Drive. Faulty Read Head Prevented Data Access - EXALAB"
description: "A 2009 Western Digital hard drive developed a read head fault after 14 years of use, making data inaccessible. Data recovery was successful."
url: "https://www.exalab.cz/en/blog/from-practice/labnotes/data-recovery-from-an-external-drive-faulty-read-head-prevented-data-access"
date: "2026-06-20T00:18:19+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

##  Data Recovery from an External Drive. Faulty Read Head Prevented Data Access

A Western Digital hard drive manufactured in 2009 served well in a laptop for a long time. When it was time to upgrade to an SSD, it continued to serve the user as an external USB drive. However, 14 years is a long time, which can manifest various issues. This drive, in addition to minor surface defects on the data platters, also exhibited a failure of one read head. Such a fault can make all user data inaccessible.

  ![Data Recovery from an External Drive. Faulty Read Head Prevented Data Access](https://www.exalab.cz/images/blog/EN2306281-obnoveni-dat-z-externiho-disku-fw1200.jpg) We often encounter this type of fault with hard drives. It can be due to spontaneous failure, normal handling, or, in worse cases, a fall or a hard impact. Particularly with older Western Digital hard drives, this issue usually makes data completely inaccessible to the user, but if data recovery is entrusted to professionals, success rates are typically good. This was also the case with this drive.

Older models of WD hard drives are prone to this type of fault. Specifically, this 500GB drive has a total of 2 data platters and 4 read heads. The read heads are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, with heads 0 and 1 being especially important, but heads 2 and 3 are also significant in these cases. This case was typical, with head 0 causing the failure. An important first step is to assess the overall condition of the drive. It is not advisable to experiment with a drive that has mechanically damaged read heads due to a fall, but if there is no mechanical damage and a visual inspection is satisfactory, it is possible to disable one or more read heads through intervention in the drive's service data, create a binary copy of the content using the functional read heads, then replace the read heads and complete the binary copy. This procedure may not necessarily be suitable for other brands or modern drives.

**Data Medium:** WD5000BEVT-22ZAT0
**Capacity:** 500 GB
**Problem:** Failure of one read head, surface errors on data platters
**Solution:** Replacement of read heads, modification of service data
**Result:** Data recovered with approximately 99% success rate

The result of this data recovery from the external drive was very good. Minor surface errors on the data platters caused about a 1% error rate in the output, but the user was satisfied. The fault described here may not seem dramatic, but data recovery is practically impossible without professional hardware, software, and long-term experience. If a damaged hard drive contains important data, avoid self-experimentation and always contact data recovery specialists first. We offer free diagnostics and consultation.

   Details   By Frantisek Fridrich  Frantisek Fridrich   Parent Category: [Z praxe](https://www.exalab.cz/en/blog/from-practice)   [LABnotes](https://www.exalab.cz/en/blog/from-practice/labnotes)

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