Hard Drive Repair - Circuit board - Pls Help!

Jack Sawyer · 22-03-2014 8:11pm #1

Well because I'm an idiot I lost a load of photos on a HD that I was always planning on backing up properly and sensibly ----> next week etc

- Lesson learnt and am really anxious to get these back as have lots of family pics on there.

The thing is I don't have €600+ to send it of to a specialist repair company as I hear thats what these cost.

Also the drive died cause of a voltage spike so am 99% sure due to the situation and symptoms present in drive now that a good electronics repair person could help me out as usually its just a case of mending the IC on the circuit board that got fried.

I also have a second identical working HD so often a chip transplant from board to board can cure this.

Anyone have any suggestions am in Limerick area but will travel?

Thanks!

riclad · 22-03-2014 8:28pm

SEE
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/272106-32-swap-bios-hard-drive

This is not true, a PCB swap will NOT work on most modern drives, you MUST transfer the firmware chip as it contains drive specific data. If you're not comfortable doing this soldering work, I'd bring it to a local electronics repair show and have them move the chip for you.

google pc data recovery limerick.

http://tierradatarecovery.co.uk/swapping-pcbs

http://www.goldenpages.ie/ms/ms/limerickcomputersie-limerick/ms-90039113/

LOOKS like you,ll have to swap in firmware chip from the old drive.
to the goof drive pcb.

is this drive sata type,
not ide?

bonzodog2 · 22-03-2014 9:11pm

How identical are the 2 drives? If they're within a couple of months of mfg date, you might just swap the PCBs. I don't think it would hurt to try.
This guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx-D1nJcv0k

is a well respected authority on such matters

this may not be the video I was intending, but he has several

Tokyo · 22-03-2014 10:35pm

Can you post the details of the drive, including firmware version?

Jack Sawyer · 22-03-2014 11:03pm

Hey - Really appreciate the replies - this one is very personal to me and would be so relieved to get it all sorted so thanks sincerely for taking the time to post and help out.

- I'll go check the drives and post full details in next 5 mins.

Jack Sawyer · 22-03-2014 11:32pm

Ok so 2 X Western Digital Caviar Green 1.0TB

SATA / 32MB Cache

ID on PCB (Firmware No I think?) : 2060-701590-000 REV A <

Same on both drives I have. [And one is fully operational and backed up]

MDL: WD10EADS-00L5B1 - Also same on both.

Date 02 March 2009 - Again same.

- Mentions an option of PUIS (power up in standby via jumpers)

* Both drives looking good for commonality - ie. all specifics are the same incl manufacturing date. Only differences seem to be as expected - ie. serial number.

Theres also a WWN & a DCM which do vary - no notion what these are - hopefully not a deal breaker though.

Really appreciate the help and advice

Tokyo · 22-03-2014 11:47pm

Well the good news is that your drives are compatible, the bad news is that with WD, it looks like you'll probably have to swop the ROM chip on the boards in order to get it to work correctly. Having said that, there's enough of a 'probably' in the equation that I'd try a direct board swop first, and hope that you get lucky. It's not going to do any damage to try it - the drive will either be detected, or it won't.

Jack Sawyer · 22-03-2014 11:57pm

Thanks Mike

- I had held off on the board swap as I read a few pieces online where people were making out that trying this and not succeeding could make data recovery later more difficult/expensive/unsuccessful... That said these were all from representatives of data recovery companies (articles & youtube clips) so perhaps vested interests prevailed online... who knows.....

- You reckon so it should be safe enough to give it a lash and not put me back a step?

Tokyo · 23-03-2014 12:03am

Can you upload a pic of the white sticker on each of the PCB's? Or post the number form each?

Tokyo · 23-03-2014 12:37am

DCM matches in all the right places.
Date of manufacture is spot on.
model number matches in all the right places.

Swapping matching PCB's won't do any physical damage to the platters or the heads, the information on the ROM determines how the data will be read from the platters, and if the ROMs don't match, the drives just won't read. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but if they were MY drives, I'd have no issue in swopping the boards and seeing if it reads. I've had success with drives that have matched up a lot less than the ones you are working with.

Usual disclaimer applies - I'm not responsible for any loss of data, big bright sparks, shooting flames from the drive, etc etc

Jack Sawyer · 23-03-2014 12:49am

mike_ie wrote: »

Can you upload a pic of the white sticker on each of the PCB's? Or post the number form each?

Apologies for the photo rotation thing, just noticed it now, am on iPhone, not sure why some snaps are being spun 90 (?)

2061-701590-J00 AD XC7K10 03HD F 0003350 9353

2061-701590-J00 AD XC7K10 2HYK K 0003350 9353

Hmmm there's that section in the middle that varies - we worried (?!?!)

Thanks again.

Tokyo · 23-03-2014 12:51am

Nope, you're good. The specs you have "significantly increases the chances of PCB to work without ROM chip swap or PCB adaptation."

Give it a go, methinks.

Jack Sawyer · 23-03-2014 1:09am

mike_ie wrote: »

Nope, you're good. The specs you have "significantly increases the chances of PCB to work without ROM chip swap or PCB adaptation."

Give it a go, methinks.

Wow - Tentatively delighted - Prob now is have no torx driver or caddy so can't try this til tomorrow.

- Will post back as soon as I get to try this - thanks so much for all the time and effort - it's very much appreciated.

Tokyo · 23-03-2014 1:12am

Being tentatively "well maaaaybe it'll work" would probably be more realistic. Let us know how you fare out.

breadbin · 23-03-2014 8:59am

eager to hear how you get on with this. best of luck!

Jack Sawyer · 25-03-2014 1:09am

Hey am back - sorry for suspenseful delay, was away with work and then was waiting for brother in law to drop in a set of torx screwdrivers.....

This worked

Swapped the boards and there's really no story - drive was operational immediately with no issues whatsoever.

In researching this I came across a few people mentioning its a 'thing' to buy HDs in pairs - it certainly saved me - but that said I was particularly luckly to have two shipped to my door that sat alongside each other on the production line!

- Am so relieved, stupid massive 1TB drives inviting stupid me to store years of sentimentally v valuable photos on a device with all the durability of an egg and in one egg basket too!

Lesson learnt - keeping a backup of anything critical here and also leaving a backup USB external drive in my parents house (to cover fire & theft also) and will add new stuff via a thumb drive every so often.

- Anyway thanks to all of you for the help and advice, this place is a great tech resource and I appreciate the kindness of strangers - people who had nothing to gain and lots to give.

Tokyo · 25-03-2014 1:20am

Glad to hear that it worked! I have to admit, I've been waiting for a post all day

The theory behind the matching drives is, when a drive is manufactured, it's tested and calibrated, and that calibration data (head resistance, etc) is saved on the ROM chip. Each drive is unique, but the theory goes that if the drives come off the line one after the other, chances are they are machined and assembled pretty much to the same spec and the calibration data will match, more or less. Two or three months apart, and the assembly line machines will have moved enough that the resulting drives will be calibrated far more differently to compensate.

However, the match isn't perfect, so don't just put the working board on the old drive and leave it. Put the working board on the old drive just long enough to transfer all the data off of it, and then put the working board back on it's original drive again. That board is a 100% match for that drive, it may only be a 95% match for the drive with the burnt out board.

riclad · 25-03-2014 1:55am

MAYBE use the cloud, eg dropbox, flikr ,google drive online storage,i think gdrive 15 gig free,
to store photo,s .THE most important ones maybe transfer first.
ANY important data should be on 2 drives ,not in the same building.
Drive,s , even solid state ones, will stop working , or wear out at some point.

from article,

Some may say that SSDs do not stop working or slow down over time, as hard drives do. I've been using SSDs in my personal computers for years now. Some do die and, just like a hard drive, they do slow down over time. Don't let anyone tell you different.

ww.computerworld.com/s/article/9230882/Hard_disk_drives_vs._solid_state_drives_Are_SSDs_finally_worth_the_money_?taxonomyId=234&pageNumber=4

breadbin · 25-03-2014 7:19am

wow fair play to ya for getting it working. photos are worth the effort at least:)

beauf · 25-03-2014 11:38am

This worked for me many years ago. Had two drives originally bought to use as raid which I gave up. Many years later one of the drive PCB blew. I had to track down the 2nd HD, someone had borrowed and it took me months to get it back. But then swapped the PCB's and it worked perfectly. Lesson learnt and use multiple drive copies now for backups.

However once I had corruption that spread from one drive to the others. But was saved because every so often, say once a year I do a back up to DVD's of essential stuff to DVD. So I would advise of making more than one backup and to a different type of media, be it to DVD or online or whatever. Also keep dated backups. So once for this month, one 6 months old and another once a year. Because you might not notice a problem for some time. So its useful to be able to go back.

Hard Drive Repair - Circuit board - Pls Help!

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