hostness

My story goes something like living in an area where there's a lot of blackouts (at least a few times a year) and power is unstable. Combined that with a cheap power supply equaled one day where there was a power surge and blew out both my Western Digital hard drives.

When the power surge happened, there was actual fire (visible from my eyes), and a good amount of heavy electronic smoke. What's ironic about this whole situation is the reason I was able to see all of this was because I was swapping out hd's / moving files around because I was doing a backup that night. Essentially, it was pretty disheartening.

This was a few years ago. I've kept my hard drives to see if drive recovery prices would go down, but they're still atrocious ($1500-3000, are you kidding me?).

Anyways, I went back and researched pcb swaps and all other potential recovery methods for a lot of hours and I think the pcb swap is the way to go. I finally went out to the hardware store and bought some torx screwdrivers and opened it up for the first time, and sure enough, there's a lot of damage to the chips.

I've uploaded two sets of pictures in order of taking apart. The first is the 80 gb hard drive, the 2nd is the 200 gb hard drive.

What's interesting is how both goth MESSED up in the same area.

My question is, what do I need to do for best success to recovery my data?

raptor_pa

Those are the motor control chips, pretty common on WD drives with a surge. That was a pretty good hit tho from the amount of damage.
A swap is definitely the first step. A couple things to keep in mind...
1) With that damage, there is a better thasn 50 -50 chance that the preamp is also blown or shorted. The preamp is internal, not asure of a check on WD that is easy to do to determine that. If the preamp is shorted, there is a possibility you will take out the new board.
2) You also may need to swap the u12 chip from the patient board to the donor board. This chip contains drive specific adaptives that are used to locate the firmware on the disks platters. If the adaptives between the disks are close enough, it may work without a swap, but if the drive spins after swap but clicks, then u12 will need swapped.

For matching the PCB, you need to match model numbers, close on date of manufacture, same country of manufacture. On the PCB there is a bar code label, usually stuck to the top of the IDE connector. The first two set of numbers ( left most) must match exactly, the more of the rest that match the better chance for a donor match.
Finally the firmware revision must be an exact match. I would also order a complete drive, that way you can test the board functions before the swap, and also can use retest the boards in case the patient does not spin up to confirm a shorted preamp did not toast the donor board.
The swap itself is pretty easy, the toughest part is if you need to swap the rom chip, it's a pretty easy chip to work with thoe with a 15 0r 20 watt soldering iron. Just don't use too much heat, or force the pins too much to get the chips loose.

hostness

Thanks so much for the reply. I have a question regarding the numbers on the pcb.

So for the first drive (200 gb), the number on the sticker near the IDE connector is:
2061-001160-100 DC

But the number on the actual pcb is:
2060-001160-001 (Rev A)


Same with the 2nd hd (80 GB):

Sticker: 0000 001092-100 M
PCB: 2060-001092-007 (Rev A)



What do those numbers mean, and which do I need to match up?

And how likely is the u12 going to need to be swapped. I don't know how to solder/unsolder whatsoever, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to find someone who can.

And when you say regarding if the preamp is blown that i'll need to "take out the new board" what do you mean by that?

Thanks much for your help, I really appreciate it.

raptor_pa

I have always used the numbers on the sticker. It defines some of the components used on the board. so the sticker numbers would need to be
2061 001169
0000 001092
The u12 swap is a chot in the dark, it all depends how close the two drives are to 'perfect' factory specimens. Things like sector remapping in the service area, preamp and head bias voltages are calculated per drive and written to that drives rom. If they are both close to the 'perfect' drive, then they will work without the swap - too much difference it will need swapped. i've found probably 40% I've done have needed swapped on WD. Any good electronics type shop tv/radio repair kind of place should be able to swap out that chip for you relatively inexpensively...
What I had said about the shorted preamp is if the preamp is shorted, it can destroy the new board - it would "take out" the board

hostness

Thanks for your help. I think I'm just going to order a pcb and hope that the preamp is alrite. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a whole hard disk with what I need.

raptor_pa

I haven't dealt with these people yet, but I usually go for full drives - in case a head swap is alos needed. There is a WD tool somewhere on their site to match WD boards, but I don't remember how I got to it, might want to drop them a line, you will still need to match model, board n label numbers, firmware http://www.hdd-parts.com/index.html If you need the rom swap they can do it for you. You will need two boards, one for each drive. Good luck with it and keep us posted on how you make out!

hostness

Another question: I found a seller that has a pcb with exact sticker # and pcb #, (well exact except for the last off digit number which I don't think should be a big deal), but doesn't have any info on the hard disk model, etc.

How important is it to match up the hard drive model # (WDxxx-xxxxxx)...would it work?

raptor_pa

It may or may not, the model number deals with the capacity, Capacity is determined by the number of platters and number of heads and the capacity of one surface of the platter, if the disk had a 30GB per surface platter and yours was 40 GB per surface, then it would need the ROM chip swapped at least. On Maxtor YAR drives, you can get away with differences in capacity, most other drives.. not. Even on WD, I have opened a 40 GB drive with one head, on the bottom surface of the platter, another model 40 GB with the head on the top surface. IHave always matched all the parameters mentioned above for boards, for heads, the board number is irrelevant.