Hi there, not long ago my WD hdd broke, no longer recognised by the bios, no spinning, no clicking sounds nothing (tested on several computers), what happened was this:
For some unknown reason, my mate decided to unplug my hdd, both the sata and molex connections, however Im pretty sure the computer was off at this point. I came in fairly tipsy that night, powered on the computer, obviously nothing showed up on the bios screen as the hdd wasnt plugged in, so I started fumbling around with wires, trying to plug it in. I failed, tried to put the sata in the bit where the jumper pins go didnt have a clue in my intoxicated state, however I remember seeing sparks when fiddling with the connectors as I think the computer was on when I was foolishly trying to plug everything back in. Anyway next morning, with a stinking headache I tried again to plug in the hdd (computer off), did but the hdd is no longer recognised by the bios, i tried different sata connections etc everything put it in my mates computer nothing, no spinning or anything. My question is, is it the PCB board that is buggered or something else? I have had a look at the pcb board on both sides to see if anything was obviously fried, i couldnt see anything obviously wrong with it, except on the underside of the hdd (the side with the barcode sticker on) there's a few traces that are missing (They were hanging off loose when I looked at it). Ive been reading about changing pcb boards and i gather its more difficult than just straight swapping, even if all the pcb, model and dcn numbers all match, something about the firmware. I read some posts and have come accross someone from this forum who says he can supply a working pcb board the same as mine (I must ship mine out to him so he can get the firmware off it), my question is am I wasting my money by doing that, or would getting a new pcb, with correct pcb numbers, model numbers and firmware fix my poorly hdd? Sorry for the long post, any info would be great, thanks in advance Curtis

You can't swap the PCBs on the AAKS, AAJS, AACS, AAVS, AAKB and so on... In a very rare case, your drive may be recognized and able to access some of the data (such as a few GB), by swapping the PCB with the exactly matching numbers.

It is the drive's design and therefore you have to ask the data recovery professional to do pull your data. Normally it requires the whole drive and not just the PCB in order to complete this task.

I have many AAKS donor drives here and some even have identical DCM, same date & same factory with the same PCB info but the swap won't work between them!!! I have seen the simple PCB swap did yeild data but it is a rare case. You'll end up spending a lot more money trying to find that miracle match... (specially if your drive has a lot of data, then the simple swap will more than likely will not work)

Good Luck!!

Thanks for the quick reply, the guy (networkpc3000 is his name on this forum) says something about programming the new pcb with firmware from the old (broken) one, he sounds like he knows what hes talking about however would it be a wast of money? Thanks Curtis

PCimage is in your area he could probably help you out on this one if that is what the problem is actually on this drive. Give him a PM on this one

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Iorana Haraharaini

Well ,
Try And Speak To sean "PCIMAGE"

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Changing the EEPROM is a lot harder than fixing the most likely problem on your original board.

Check TVS diodes D3 and D4 (near the SATA power connector) for short circuits with a multimeter. If either is shorted, just desolder it or snip it out with flush cutters. The drive will work without it. Just be sure your power supply is good.

You will also need to check the zero ohm resistors, R67 and R64. If either is open, then replace it with a 2A picofuse, or bridge it with a short length of wire.

If you need more help with this, feel free to ask. One of us will help you.

BTW, a cheap digital multimeter will cost you US$10 and will come in handy for other jobs.