Need to find replacement PCB for WD Caviar RE2

Tiberius51 · 04-12-2008, 05:07 PM

Hi everybody, I'm in the unfortunate position of attempting data recovery from a dead drive that I'm fairly sure has fried it's PCB.

Here's the situation. I have a computer used primarily for data storage and backup which is why I built it using two WD Caviar RE2 drives. Everything I read indicated that they were reliable and durable. As it turns out, their performance is less than spectacular. Recently, one of them suddenly stopped working. After many attempts to get the system to even recognize the drive, I tried a last ditch effort. I swapped the PCB from the remaining good drive onto the dead one and booted back up. The computer was able to recognize the drive and access the data, which was more or less intact. I was able to do about a 95% recovery of the data. I considered myself fortunate and chalked this up to bad luck.

Well, bad luck has nothing to do with it. The same thing has happened now with the second drive (using the originally good PCB), where even the BIOS hangs when trying to access it. I've looked at both PCB's and can clearly see burnt and severely worn contacts and connections all over the place, so there is some sort of manufacturing or design defect that's leading to these problems.

So, while I'm definitely avoiding Western Digital drives now, I'd still like to recover at least some data from the dead drive. I've been trying to find a replacement PCB for the drive, but they are very difficult to locate.

I would appreciate any help in finding one or more replacement PCB's at a reasonable price. It's not vitally important that I recover the data, but it would save me some grief.

**Deleted090308** · 04-13-2008, 03:33 AM

Welcome to TSF.

Finding the correct PCB can be VERY difficult.
It has to be the same model, firmware etc.

Check the different numbers on the PCB - then look for a PCB or an identical drive on, for example, eBay.

Have a look at post #5 here: http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41110

04-12-2008, 05:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
Tiberius51 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 1 OS: Ubuntu 7.10, Fedora 8, Fedora 8 PPC, Windows XP Pro SP2, Windows Vista Ultimate SP1	Need to find replacement PCB for WD Caviar RE2 Hi everybody, I'm in the unfortunate position of attempting data recovery from a dead drive that I'm fairly sure has fried it's PCB. Here's the situation. I have a computer used primarily for data storage and backup which is why I built it using two WD Caviar RE2 drives. Everything I read indicated that they were reliable and durable. As it turns out, their performance is less than spectacular. Recently, one of them suddenly stopped working. After many attempts to get the system to even recognize the drive, I tried a last ditch effort. I swapped the PCB from the remaining good drive onto the dead one and booted back up. The computer was able to recognize the drive and access the data, which was more or less intact. I was able to do about a 95% recovery of the data. I considered myself fortunate and chalked this up to bad luck. Well, bad luck has nothing to do with it. The same thing has happened now with the second drive (using the originally good PCB), where even the BIOS hangs when trying to access it. I've looked at both PCB's and can clearly see burnt and severely worn contacts and connections all over the place, so there is some sort of manufacturing or design defect that's leading to these problems. So, while I'm definitely avoiding Western Digital drives now, I'd still like to recover at least some data from the dead drive. I've been trying to find a replacement PCB for the drive, but they are very difficult to locate. I would appreciate any help in finding one or more replacement PCB's at a reasonable price. It's not vitally important that I recover the data, but it would save me some grief.

04-13-2008, 03:33 AM	#2 (permalink)
Deleted090308 Not... Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 22,277 OS: Xp	Re: Need to find replacement PCB for WD Caviar RE2 Welcome to TSF. Finding the correct PCB can be VERY difficult. It has to be the same model, firmware etc. Check the different numbers on the PCB - then look for a PCB or an identical drive on, for example, eBay. Have a look at post #5 here: http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41110