is it worth buying a replacement pcb,logic board for a hard drive.?

gamer

whats the best place to buy pcbs ,logic boards for a hard drive,its 2 years old ,.seagate,in dublin.size 60gigabyte.IS it worth buying a replacement pcb.i think hard drive ok, it may need new pcb.whats the average price for a pcb.i understand it needs to be a particular pcb for seagate,model 650 whatever.

duridian

I never heard of anyone doing such a thing. While it may be possible to do so, I doubt the hard drive manufacturers sell the boards separate from the rest of the hard drive. I may be wrong, but also it hardly seems worth it unless there is some absolutely vital data on it that you must recover. If not then I'd say getting a new hard drive would be more more economically viable since 60gig hard drives would be only around €40-50 new.

paddy

I don't think the manufacturer would supply you with one, but you might get one in a recycling place that recycles used computer hardware like link

Capt'n Midnight

If it's a head crash (ball bearing dropping sound) or misc. mechanical problems or if the spindle motor has gone or the head voice coils or if the seal has gone or if the the drive was dropped and is more than 1/100 the width of a human hair off centre then there is no point in replacing the board.

If you did repace the board then one from a different drive would not work or even a different revision of the same drive.

What are the symptoms ? - Sounds ending in the letter G may be ok those ending in K are terminal pcb or not. chuggg vs. clinK /clunK / TicK TicK Tick

leeroybrown

Generally replacing the logic board on the drive involves scavanging one from another identical drive with a mechanical failure. To my knowledge it's impossible to get the boards seperately.

In any event hard drives are cheap consumables that should be replaced when they fail. Unless you have some valuable data on the drive don't bother with the PCB - just buy a new drive.

gamer

ill have to get 1 from old drive or from sum1 in the trade ,nuthing mechanical wrong with the drive ,it was not dropped.theres articles on net HOW to repair hds and swap out logic boards.

Capt'n Midnight

gamer wrote:

ill have to get 1 from old drive or from sum1 in the trade ,nuthing mechanical wrong with the drive ,it was not dropped.theres articles on net HOW to repair hds and swap out logic boards.

It's been ages since I've had this work for me, works better on much older drives. And yes I've had it not work on about 6 drives from the same batch.

duridian

The chances of hitting on someone with the exact same model hard drive who is willing to sell you the pcb from theirs is pretty slim but if you insist on it good luck with it. Like the Captain said even then there's no certainty that the pcb swap will work.

rsynnott

Unless you need to retrieve data from the drive there's no point; just buy a new one.

carbsy

Surely someone here has the same drive and could lend him the drive electronics to see...

galwaydude18

try a look in ebay. ya might get one there...

SickBoy

I'm in the same boat as you gamer. I'm trying to fix a Hitachi De(ath)skstar 120Gb. It's spinning up fine and grand but it's not being detected. I told the guy that it's a long shot but he says he needs the data badly. I've purchased an identical model and I'll let you know if it works out when it arrives next week...
Fingers crossed

SickBoy

Ok bad news. The new drive arrived today and swapping the PCB didn't make any difference
This might not be the case for you Gamer but as the others pointed out and I just proved, getting the same model drive doesn't guarantee success

gamer

go to seagate.com hd manufacturer ,see info re hd,s firmware versions,etc,if info is really vital u can send hd to data recovery specialist or even back to hd,,company ,sometimes the fix em at costprice.email hd company,no harm asking.try plastic bag freezer trick.

RicardoSmith

I had two identical Quantum drives. One PCB failed on one. Swapping the logic board worked. But these were two identical drives from the same batch.