WD5000AAJS Head Issue

[Philip Shaw]

Good afternoon. I received a WD5000AAJS drive a few weeks ago and it was clicking/clunking loudly. I ordered  a donor and replaced the heads and it still did the same thing. I moved the ROM and replaced the customer PCB with the donor PCB and the drive came ready. I was able to get a head map and image everything under Head2. I was able to get considerably less sectors from under the other five heads before the head stack died. I did another head replacement and I was able to read everything under all of the heads except Head4. I have averaged the parameters in Module 47 and tried a different PCB with no success. When I put the heads back in the donor they all work fine. To get into the customer drive with the donor heads I have to modify the head map to all 2s and then get out and come back in and change them back. It works great except for Head4. I don't see why another head replacement would work any better. Any thoughts on what might be causing Head4 to be effectively dead in the customer drive?

Thanks.

[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Instead of averaging module 0x47, why not import the donor's adaptives? If you use the donor's PCB and heads, then you could import the microjogs, read channel and preamp adaptives for both.

[Philip Shaw]

For Head4 the microjog was 0x09E6 on the patient and donor and that is what the average shows. 

On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 1:24 PM pbzcbf...@gmail.com <pbzcbf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Instead of averaging module 0x47, why not import the donor's adaptives? If you use the donor's PCB and heads, then you could import the microjogs, read channel and preamp adaptives for both.

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[George Yakobic]

The problem lives on the platter, not the heads.

 Disable Head 4 If possible, image everything else first and finalize recovery from the other 5 heads.
 Start from outer tracks and inner tracks separately. Sometimes only one zone is destroyed.

On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 1:13 PM Philip Shaw <shawcomput...@gmail.com> wrote:

Good afternoon. I received a WD5000AAJS drive a few weeks ago and it was clicking/clunking loudly. I ordered  a donor and replaced the heads and it still did the same thing. I moved the ROM and replaced the customer PCB with the donor PCB and the drive came ready. I was able to get a head map and image everything under Head2. I was able to get considerably less sectors from under the other five heads before the head stack died. I did another head replacement and I was able to read everything under all of the heads except Head4. I have averaged the parameters in Module 47 and tried a different PCB with no success. When I put the heads back in the donor they all work fine. To get into the customer drive with the donor heads I have to modify the head map to all 2s and then get out and come back in and change them back. It works great except for Head4. I don't see why another head replacement would work any better. Any thoughts on what might be causing Head4 to be effectively dead in the customer drive?

Thanks.

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[Philip Shaw]

I have read everything under the other five heads. Head4 read 504 sectors successfully with the first set of heads but nothing with the second. I've done a lot of recoveries and this doesn't seem like a platter damage issue.

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[Desert Data Recovery]

Turn all other heads off in RAM. Set the head map to be 44444.

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[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Would you mind uploading the patient ROM and both donor ROMs?

[RecuperoDati299]

Those drives

(as far I remember)

are the ones with nasty board 444 or 537 (last 3 digits of the board number)

and, if it is , you also may have replaced heads for nothing

So you'd better use a secure and tested board

if the board is not the case,

then check out for microjogs. They are not fixable with average.

Those ancient drives want at least less than 100 as difference, better less than 50

and as Tim said work with head map in RAM

initialize the drive with one head only the  switch on the one you need

Ottieni BlueMail per Android

[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

"I moved the ROM and replaced the customer PCB with the donor PCB ..."

[Philip Shaw]

It should be in order of customer, first donor, and second donor.

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[Philip Shaw]

Tim, I had already tried turning the RAM head map editing option to 4 4 4 4 4 4 with no success. I am not seeing how to turn the heads off in RAM if that is another step you are suggesting.

[RecuperoDati299]

if head map is 0 1 2 3 4 5

in the moment you set 4 4 4 4 4 4

you have set of 0 1 2 3 and 5

Ottieni BlueMail per Android

[Desert Data Recovery]

Did you try the RAM head map trick?

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[Desert Data Recovery]

Scrap that. Messages overlapped.

[RecuperoDati299]

but you cannot initialize the drive with 444444

try 000000 or 111111

and or play with SA sparring

Ottieni BlueMail per Android

Il giorno 11 apr 2026, alle ore 22:37, Philip Shaw <shawcomput...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

[Desert Data Recovery]

He can get the drive to initialize. He has imaged the rest of the heads. It's just H4 he doesn't have

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[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

I have imported module 0x47 from donor 2 into the customer's ROM. I don't know if this will make any difference, but a similar import did work for a user at HDD Guru some time ago. That was on those BB models with the cover-screw-alignment issue.

[Philip Shaw]

Thanks, I will write it to the patient drive and move the heads back tomorrow morning.

On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 5:48 PM pbzcbf...@gmail.com <pbzcbf...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have imported module 0x47 from donor 2 into the customer's ROM. I don't know if this will make any difference, but a similar import did work for a user at HDD Guru some time ago. That was on those BB models with the cover-screw-alignment issue.

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[Philip Shaw]

Good afternoon. I wanted to give an update on this drive from hell. I put the second donor heads back in the customer drive after writing the modified ROM to it. Unfortunately, it did the same thing. However, I was able to find an old customer drive that was a good match and I decided to give it a shot. I wrote Module 47 from the third donor drive to the customer ROM and then did the head exchange. The drive came right up and I was able to image the rest of the data under Head4. For some reason Head4 from the second donor just didn't play nice with the customer drive. 

I have been on this list for the better part of fifteen years and it is always nice to see the supportive and informed nature of the responses. Special thanks to pbz for taking the extra time on this one.

[RecuperoDati299]

The point remains the earlier one

microjogs

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[Philip Shaw]

They microjogs were identical for the donor and the customer on Head4. I don't see why that would have caused this problem.

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[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Module 0x47 has 3 sets of adaptive parameters -- microjogs, preamp values, read channel parameters. As I understand it, microjogs apply during writing. The other two apply during both reading and writing.

[Daniel Milinovic]

Some rare times ive done all and still last head wont read on wd. No visible scratches. But after just swappig heads i get it to read (just trying new heads) until the last head reads. Sometimes 4-5 swaps until it read. Even if other heads came ready the last head wouldnt read i just swap.

But then again i remember i had a smr wd drive that i was only able to read one head of two. no scratches done eveything and also  swapped maybe 8 donors still same. Drive gets ready with each swap but no read from last head. It sucks when like that.

Good luck.

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From: datarecovery...@googlegroups.com <datarecovery...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Philip Shaw <shawcomput...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2026 12:26:42 AM
To: datarecovery...@googlegroups.com <datarecovery...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: WD5000AAJS Head Issue

 

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[RecuperoDati299]

"Module 0x47 has 3 sets of adaptive parameters -- microjogs, preamp values, read channel parameters. As I understand it, microjogs apply during writing. The other two apply during both reading and writing."

good info

though, could be that there is a relationship or a proportion between those values

since we have always been comfortable choosing microjigs within some "tolerances" (that vary depending on family epoch and the self microjogs)

outside those tolerances quite always we have verified that initializing is impossible or there's a lot of instability or reading speed suck or  you must do tricks that in the end , again, will allow an initialization but reading will nasty

Ottieni BlueMail per Android

[Data Recovery Guru]

Same experience here on this family drive with swapping heads. They have low tolerance if microjog value is far apart for a particular head.

Many donors needed until matching microjogs for a particular head. I noticed many times that a donor could read 1 or 2 surfaces only.

Due to this issue, sometimes, the drive cannot calibrate and ID with donor heads, therefore hot swap is needed.

Heads are compatible between Tornada PATA and Tornado 3D families.

It is PITN.

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[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

I don't understand your experiences with microjogs. Microjogs reflect the distance between the read and write elements of each head. When a head is commanded to write, the head is micro-jogged to one side of the track so that its write element is positioned directly above the track. If the microjog values differ, then a donor head which uses a patient's microjog value will be slightly off-track. In some cases, eg early Maxtor (or Quantum) drives, the head will be positioned over an adjacent track. Microjogs shouldn't come into play during reading.

This tutorial explains microjogs (MR Offset) and other terms:

https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html

US patent #5978168 has a good explanation of microjogs:

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US5978168.pdf


Here are the offsets for each set of adaptives in module ox47 of donor #2:

Offset(h) 00   02   04   06   08   0A   0C   0E

00000000  524F 594C 0100 1E00 4700 0200 D89A 722D  ROYL............
00000010  425A 2E32 3820 2020 0906 0700 3000 6001  BZ.28   ........
                                        ^^^^ ****
                                     r/chan   preamp
00000020  8001
          ====
     microjogs


read channel adaptives

Offset(h) 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 20 21 22 23 24 25

00000026                                40 69 C0 E0 C0 80 CB 1D 03 06 0D 23 56 18 E4 EC FB FD 02 00 00 25 81 30 3C 1D 00 7F  head #0
0000004C  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 05 06 04 40 69 C0 C0 98 80 CB 1D 02 05 0C 1E 56 14 E2 EC FB FD 02 01 00 37 81 30 3C 1D 11 7F  head #1
00000072  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 06 08 05 40 52 C0 E0 C8 80 CB 1D 02 06 0D 23 56 1E E5 EA FA FC 12 01 00 22 81 30 3C 1D 13 7F
00000098  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 04 05 04 40 5F C0 D0 B8 80 CB 1D 03 07 0E 23 56 12 E2 ED FC FD 72 00 00 21 81 30 3C 1D 10 7F
000000BE  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 07 07 06 40 5D C0 C0 B8 80 CB 1D 04 07 0D 1E 56 22 E8 EB FA FD 02 00 00 24 81 30 3C 1D 10 7F
000000E4  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 05 05 04 40 6F C0 D0 B8 80 CB 1D 03 06 0D 23 56 1B E5 EB FB FC 72 01 00 3B 81 30 3C 1D 12 7F
0000010A  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 05 05 04 40 7B C0 90 B4 80 CB 1D 02 03 0B 10 56 0A EB F0 00 FB 72 02 00 23 81 30 3C 1D 11 7F
00000130  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 04 05 03 40 7B C0 90 B4 80 CB 1D 02 03 0B 10 56 0A EB F0 00 FB 72 02 00 23 81 30 3C 1D 11 7F  head #7
00000156  00 16 2D 1E 80 70 05 04 05 03


preamp adaptives

Offset(h) 00       04       08       0C       10       14       18       1C

00000160  20810809 20900908 1F700908 20810A05 20910A08 20900808 1EA10A05 1EA10A05
          head #0  head #1                                               head #7

microjogs

Offset(h) 00   02   04   06   08   0A   0C   0E

00000180  360A CA09 620A E609 E609 C609 7006 7006
          hd#0 hd#1                          hd#7

[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Maybe the read channel and preamp adaptives depend on the characteristics of the media rather than  the characteristics of the read channel and preamp themselves. If that's the case, then importing the donor's  read channel and preamp adaptives wouldn't be advisable.

[RecuperoDati299]

That hint comes from a long time (ages) ago from Acelab support

reading your technical description tells a different story, but the result of matching microjogs (for those drives that have them) + matching (obviously) the preamp,

always worked fine

maybe there are proportions between  microjogs and others adaptives, I don't have studied them before so I cannot make checks and comparisons

I know that it always worked :-)

and when out of range it never worked

which is also sort of counterproof

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[Data Recovery Guru]

Patnet info does not always port to reality well. It is often generalized information. As you know, in this field, exceptions is the norm.

But mjogs are a factor, because donor heads cannot read from certain surfaces. 

Whether we understand it clearly or not is one thing, the fact that it happens hands-on is another.

Even after trying adaptives imports, microjogs averages and so on.

Nobody wants to spend hundreds of dollars in donor drives for a recovery, along with hours and hours of dealing with swapping heads, do all kinds of tricks to initialize drives, testing in different zones, read one or two surfaces, rebuild donor and test that to determine anything revealing, cleanse and repeat the process until all surfaces are cloned.

Sometimes even hot swaps are necessary, because this family is particular about initializing.

Believe me, it is not fun. 

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[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Each head has different gain and frequency response. That's why tracks are recorded with differing bits per inch values. Maybe that would a positive reason to import read channel and preamp adaptive.

[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Maybe you are blaming the read problem on microjogs when you should be blaming the other two adaptives.