Namaste Amarbir:

While it's certainly possible (as we have done it), I wouldn't go so far as to classify it as "easy." There is no way I could have done it if I hadn't had head swap experience leading to it.

When you casually say stuff is "a easy job", you encourage people who have no business to open their drives in their kitchens and garages, leaving the mess for others to clean up (when it can be done).

Cheers & best,

Jono

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

I haven't tried this personally but I know that those two model are both from Pebble beach family, so essentially they are the same drive with the same firmware . Based on previous experience they will be compatible

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

I've got this far, but nothing coming through on the SATA end. I need to check everything again, or just get a compatible PCB now that I see they're available.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

The wires are too long

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

BTW have you tried using USB/COM utility ?

Did you remove the capacitors?

It's hard to tell from the photo, but ISTM that one pair of wires may be crossed.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Caps have been removed. I think Doomer is right, wires are too long and/or thick. Going to rather source a SATA board.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

Can you tell us which wire goes where? It still doesn't look right to me.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Is Your SATA Cable Slowing Down Your Data Transfers? Max PC Investigates:
http://web.archive.org/web/201111161606 ... vestigates

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

There is quite a difference, IMHO, between shielded cable and unshielded wires with SATA.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

That wasn't a question, that was a fact.
I'm not trying to theorize based on some articles, I know this for a fact.
I did similar soldering, first hand.
And I can see from the picture that the wires are too long for this model.
I know this because I was able to get successful results with shorter wires.

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Hey guys,
I got some pictures back from Maxim at ACE Laboratory Support team with more information on this new PCB. Too big to post here so I'll just provide the links Ace gave me (with their permission).

http://i.imgur.com/oInA35B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/N9fhAa5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/giypSg8.jpg

Hope this helps,
Brian

_________________
$300 Data Recovery - Los Angeles Data Recovery

Me too.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

The only "fact" your experiments prove, if anything, is that a short mess has a better chance of working than a long mess. The problem is in the shoddy workmanship, not the length of the cable per se. The SATA standard allows for cable lengths of 1m. The magazine article demonstrates that 1.8m lengths will still work reliably.

The fact that your setup works at all is due to the resilience of the SATA hardware, ie luck. To understand why your work is a mess you need to understand the concepts of "transmission line", "characteristic impedance", and "signal reflection". It is not sufficient to simply connect a wire from point to point.

IMHO the best and most logical approach would be to chop the end off a SATA cable and pare back the individual wires. I would also connect each of the grounds to the PCB. These ground wires eliminate or reduce crosstalk between the Tx and Rx signals. An alternative method would be to use ribbon cable, but that would be a crapshoot also.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm not sure why we are even arguing about this.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

Maybe it's because you don't understand the importance of the concepts of "transmission line", "characteristic impedance", and "signal reflection".

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

exactly
And since soldering single wires gets much different results than creating perfectly shielded and aligned connection as it is inside SATA cable I see no point posting articles about SATA CABLES here, trying to justify "long mess", as you were trying to do.


IMHO
The best approach would be to use SATA PCB
The fast approach is to use short wires
Your approach pursues theoretical clarity in which nobody has interest, except yourself.
That's why some people just go and do stuff and some people tell other people how they would do it if they would have time/skills/parts/knowledge and a million other things.

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

That's the problem when programmers pretend to be engineers. As for quick solutions, it doesn't take much time to do things right. After you're done, just add the cable to your toolbox for next time.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Says a guy who have never even tried it

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Actually, I do.

It must be very satisfying to sit in front of your computer and make all kinds of theoretical pronouncements that have no basis in experience, and premature judgements that are off the mark. Maybe with a bit more presumption & arrogance, I could try it myself?

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com