After doing some searching... it appears that the board going bad on the WD5000AAKS is a common issue. Here is what I have..




If I swap that out from another WD HDD... does it have to be the exact same for it to work or will anything work? I think the board is 2060-701477-002 Rev A. Also, is it possible to find a replacement one of those anywhere?

90 percent of problems encountered is heads... No a straightforward swap won't work.

i am agree with BlastST it might be Head Problem direct PCB swap will not work for this board u need special Device to access it's Firmware like salvation or Pc3000.

the condition of the pcb is very bad, why is it so ? is it water damaged pcb ?

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RAID/Server Recovery

I have no idea how it happened. The hard drive is almost never out of the case, and when it is, no where near water, and my case is air cooled.

How did you guys come to the conclusion on it being a head issue, if you don't mind me asking?

Because we have experience and we do DR for a living. PERIOD.

Jokes apart (but not quite so ) , normally these drives fail without notice because of heads and maybe HEADS that damage the firmware. I cannot judge the conditions of the PCB, but if the drive clicks and spindown , heads / firmware are 1st.

There is a SAFE way to check PCB but require dedicated equipment, other ways are risky so I won't talk about it (unless you can take into account screwing ROM or make further damage to the firmware).

P.S. sorry for one post after another : the PCB seems OK, what you think is "oxide" is normal . From pictures, seems a normal Pb Free PCB finish although it seems oxidized. At least from pictures.
It is quite normal reaction to air on these new RoHS / PbFree PCBs. But I can be wrong, I should see it with my eyes and maybe make a measurement / check it.

There are different type of problems in hard drive;

1). PCB
2). Head
3). Firmware
4). Motor Seized
5). Media Scratch

Your drive can have anyone of those, unless it is examined by a pro, however, Gurus here have the best experience and there guess without checking the drive can be the closest.

Give details of the drives health before it died, may be it will help to give you more details..

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RAID/Server Recovery

Hmm... I see. Well the drive is working as of right now, so I'm in the process of copying all my data off of it. I wasn't aware that, that was a normal thing to see with the discoloration of the board.

the colour of the board is quite normal for WD of that type sadly.

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

You can close this thread or whatever. The drive functioned long enough today where I was successfully able to clone it and lost no data. I'll just RMA it with WD now.

how the drives comes ready by itself, can u share please ?

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RAID/Server Recovery

Sometimes happens.

And the procedure is called Luck .

rameez, you are right..
i suspect doing something to the pcb solve the problem.
"LtLawl" can clear this

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RAID/Server Recovery

Yeah just pure luck. Haha. I did consider the freezer trick though.