Fixing a Dead Hard Drive

[LHammonds]

Has anyone seen any articles or know of anyone taking an SATA hard drive that has a damaged electronic board and replaced it with a non-damaged board and got the drive working again?

 

I have a Maxtor 250 GB SATA drive that has the "SMOOTH" chip melted and blown out on two sides. This was due to an aging PSU that decided to flip out (no storm, no brown-out, no warnings, nothing out of the normal).

 

I am hoping the physical drive is undamaged and only the electronics on the board is hosed. I have an older Maxtor 160 GB SATA that works just fine. Comparing the electronic boards on the bottoms of each drive seems like they are identical in design and shape.

 

Both of them have a section of text that reads as follows:

 

301520104

SERIAL/CALYPSO

Maxtor Corp

This leads me to believe that if I can successfully swap the boards, I will be able to retrieve the data on the 250 GB drive (assuming there is no further damage).

 

I have never done this and typically like to see articles where other people have been able to do so as well as possibly learn from others mistakes rather than venturing into the unknown when I only have one shot at this.

 

The only thing keeping me from doing it already is that the screws are all star-shaped and my smallest star-shaped tool is just one size too big. grrr....going to have to buy a new tool. (no, I will not use a screwdriver or other tool that might damage the head)

 

Any suggestions or links would be appreciated.

 

Oh, and if you are wondering, yes...I have all my documents, finances, home pictures/video/audio backed up but my Oblivion Data folder was too large to be included in my automated backup job.

 

Thanks,

LHammonds

 

 

[Michlo]

I've no experience with it but it sounds feasible, aye.

 

Of course, drives are so inexpensive these days that your board should be next to nothing so you won't be losing much if it doesn't work.

 

Good luck.

[LHammonds]

My father-in-law brought over a screwdriver set that had a star-shaped point that worked!

 

When I removed the board, I was surprised to see that there was no ribbon attached or anything else attached. It simply layed on top of the drive and used contact surfaces only!

 

My odds of retrieving the data seems to have jumped from 10% to 50% chance of success.

 

I was excited to check it out and see if I was successful but quickly realized that the only computer I had that was capable of using SATA was the dead computer. DoH!

 

I need an SATA to USB converter which I happen to have at work but forgot to bring home. Oh well, I'll have to wait to see if it works. This will give me sufficient time to configure the PC I have running to be capable of holding all the data if I can access the drive. If the drive will come online, I will not wait one second to start transferring every file off that drive onto another one.

 

LHammonds

[bben46]

I haven't tried this with a SATA yet, but I have done it several times with varying degrees of success on the older drives. The same model # on the board is a good indicator that it should work. Most of my failures were due to actual physical damage to the drive.

[LHammonds]

:wallbash: I hate how a messed up morning routine throws off my entire day. I forgot my briefcase at home which had the drives!!! (No, I am not going to say what it was that disturbed my routine. ;) )

 

bben, did you really have to say "physical damage" out loud? You've gone and jinxed the whole thing up!

[LHammonds]

GOOD NEWS: Success!!! Swapping the electronic board worked. Backing up files to external drive.

 

BAD NEWS: It was not the data drive I thought it was. Nothing really helpful on that drive at all. It just contained the raw video for the movie trailers I put together in the past. :(

 

Well, I have two more drives but they are Western Digital drives where as the one I just recovered is a Maxtor. I lucked out having another functional maxtor drive that happened to have the exact same electronic board.

 

I am not so lucky with the Western Digital drives. I have pulled out every drive I have ever had over the years and out of the 7 drives, NONE of the electronic boards are a perfect match.

 

Bad Drive #1: WD1600, 160GB, IDE

Data: Most likely no valuable data

 

Bad Drive #2: WD3200, 320GB, SATA

Data: Since this was my largest and fastest drive, I assume it was my OS, Apps/Games and Data drive. The fastest drive is where I would have placed Oblivion...and thus my mod files.

 

Other Working Western Digital Drives:

 

WD2500, 250GB, IDE (this board closely resembles the WD1600)

WD1200, 120GB, IDE

WD1200, 120GB, IDE

WD400JD, 40GB, SATA

WD102AA, 10GB, IDE

 

Once the Maxtor drive is backed up, I am going to bed and will do the operation on the WD1600 drive tomorrow.

[Skotte]

I wish you luck LHammonds (hopefully good)

[LHammonds]

Putting the WD1600 electronics on the WD2500 did not seem to work. The drive spun up but Windows 7 did not detect the drive via the Rosewill USB adapter.

 

It is possible it just won't work with the IDE drive like it did with the SATA (via the Rosewill device that is). Before I give up on this drive, I will hook it up directly to the motherboard since I have an IDE-based controller but I will save that for tomorrow night.

 

I spent too long working on my shiny new modder forum and updating the project files.

 

I did some more research with the primary SATA drive which has all my data on it. It looks like I really need to purchase another WD3200 based on how this particular drive was manufactured and quite different from the models before and after it. I will first try and contact the manufacturer to see if I can purchase just the board. Next alternative is to buy the exact model off the net somewhere.

 

Personal notes (so I can call 'em tomorrow)

 

WD Caviar SE, Serial ATA Hard Drive

Drive Parameters: LBA 625142448

MDL: WD3200JD-00KLB0

DATE: 23 JUN 2005

DCM: DSBHCAJCH

Number on board: 94V-0

Number on board: 2060-701336-003 REV A

Phone Support: 1-800-275-4932

[LHammonds]

More good (lucky) news! After much fanageling, I was finally able to get the 2nd drive online. This drive contained a daily backup of my most important files (videos, pictures, contract work) and was able to retrieve all of them (doing so right this minute). It's a good thing too because I had apparently not sync'd my external drive in over a month! Whew!

 

The only thing left is the big SATA which contains all my Oblivion projects.

 

Based on the results of the other 2 drives, I am 75% sure that swapping the electronic board with the correct and functional board will work.

 

:thumbsup:

 

EDIT: Tried another SATA drive by the same manufacturer but the board design was quite different but all the major interface pieces lined up. It did not even spin up the drive. I put the board back on the other drive and it did not spin up either. I know the drive was working before so I do not know if it was damage by putting it on the other drive or if the SATA to USB adapter is not working quite right. I'll keep my fingers crossed and continue looking for more solutions.

 

LHammonds

[LHammonds]

It seems the recent forum restore wiped out my last update.

 

Rather than the wall-of-text I used last time, I will keep it short.

 

I could not utilize any of the SATA boards available to me to get the primary drive up and running. I think the main reason for this is that the boards were all too different. I did a little research online and found a drive for sale that had the same model number for about $100. I purchased it and is scheduled to arrive on Monday (8/17/2009). I am very optimistic that I will be able to retrieve the data just like the other two drives but the one thing that concerns me is that in all the attempts I made swapping boards, the drive never spun up and activated. I am hoping it is just because of the difference of the board configurations used.

 

The funny thing is that I was able to scrap together a PC but nothing I have is SATA capable so even if I can get this new drive to work, it will only be useful while I transfer the data to an IDE drive. When I purchase my 64bit system later on, I am thinking that these SATA drives will be "too slow" for the system I put together. ;)

 

LHammonds