hard drive data recovery

< Now, my question. Let's say a single head crashes. This would raise up < some dust off the platter, right? Would it be possible to recover the < material that wasn't destroyed by the dragging head? What if this < deformed the platter? Head crashes are always bad. What generally happens for 5" and 3.5" winis is the head is ripped off the mount, slammed against the wall and shattered. the free arm gouges the platter badly. the metal dust from the grinding gets into the rest of the heads and it cascades. If shut down when the head first goes the platter will be shot. Repair would be trying to get head and arm assembly, another drive to get a good platter from. Then there is the problem of disassembleing the platter drive assy as many are "glued and screwed" and maintaining tolerances on assembly. Allison