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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

February 6th, 2019, 4:06

Hi everyone.

Earlier this week I swapped out my power supply and accidentally used the SATA power cable from the old unit. The PC didn’t turn on until I realized this and replaced it with the correct cable.

Later, I found out that one of my hard drives wasn’t working. It stays cold, does not spin up, does not get detected in BIOS, and different cables/ports did not help. I also tried it in an external USB enclosure which didn’t work either.

After doing some reading around, my understanding is that the PCB’s most likely been damaged by overvoltage. I found a post from here of someone in almost exactly the same situation: https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36343

They even more-or-less have the same drive. Theirs is a 6TB Toshiba X300 6TB, mine’s a X300 5TB. Like them, I also have a spare drive of the same model. I tried its PCB on the ‘dead’ drive and it spun up which leads me to believe that the damage is limited to the PCB only. The drive was not recognized though, which I’m assuming to be due to the firmware/bios/controller chips that would need to be transferred.

However, I’m nowhere near an expert so don’t know for sure. From looking at their pics the PCBs are different (notably the lack of IC17). I bought my drives in January last year, around the time that post was made, so maybe the PCB design is newer and has better overvoltage protection? Here’s hoping.

I’ve uploaded an imgur album containing pictures of the board here: https://imgur.com/a/QFSW9CS Let me know if you would like others.

I’ve also compiled a list of the ICs I could find on the board, along with (what I gathered to the best of my ability) their functions: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Would I be correct in thinking that ICs 1, (possibly) 2, 9, 10 (according to one review site this one houses the firmware), 11 and 12 should be transferred over to a donor board in order for it to work? Or should all of the ICs be transferred, just for safe measure? (Of course I wouldn’t attempt that myself and instead take it to a professional electronics repair store)

I’ve also read that there might be some kind of fuse component that might have tripped and replacing/bypassing that could get the PCB working again. Is there anything on the board that looks like that?

I have a small multimeter that I can use to take measurements but would require guidance as I don’t have much experience (read: next to none) dealing with this kind of thing. Here’s a picture of the multimeter and it’s available modes: https://imgur.com/S6xgmuJ . If you would like me to take a measurement on either the working or faulty board please let me know, including where to place the probes and which mode to use.

I would greatly appreciate any help and advice you have to offer.
Thanks for your time.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

February 6th, 2019, 4:43

Maybe start by checking the diodes near the power connector.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

February 6th, 2019, 4:47

ISTR a thread where it was claimed that all 4 serial flash memories (IC9 - 12) need to be transferred. BTW, you should back up the contents of these chips if you can find someone competent (eg hdd-parts.com) to do this for you.

As for testing the PCB, that other HDD Guru thread (https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php ... 21#p255121) confirms that your PCB has no overvoltage protection (the diodes provide reverse polarity protection), so there will most likely be damage to the ICs rather than the diodes. Hopefully the serial flash ICs have survived.

Good luck.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

February 6th, 2019, 7:20

Thanks so much for your replies! :D
First off, let me just say that I'm completely inexperienced when it comes to this sort of thing so I apologize in advance for any frustration I cause you due to that.

pclab wrote:Maybe start by checking the diodes near the power connector.

Image

I wasn't sure whether to measure the diodes directly or using the contact points shown in red so I did both. Here's what I got using the diode test mode:
D703 diode on faulty board: 0.719v
D703 diode on working board: 0.721v

D704 diode on faulty board: 0.066v
D704 diode on working board: 0.067v

D703 contact points on faulty board: 0.72v
D703 contact points on working board: 0.721v

D704 contact points on faulty board: 0.518v
D704 contact points on working board: 0.068v

So the only difference is on the D704 contact points. What does that suggest?

fzabkar wrote:ISTR a thread where it was claimed that all 4 serial flash memories (IC9 - 12) need to be transferred. BTW, you should back up the contents of these chips if you can find someone competent (eg hdd-parts.com) to do this for you.

Thank you, I'll see if there's anyone in my area who can do the backups. Is there a device I can use to do it myself (after having someone remove the chips) or is that too expensive/risky?

fzabkar wrote:As for testing the PCB, that other HDD Guru thread (https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php ... 21#p255121) confirms that your PCB has no overvoltage protection (the diodes provide reverse polarity protection), so there will most likely be damage to the ICs rather than the diodes. Hopefully the serial flash ICs have survived.


:(
My hope was that since the PCBs seem to have a different design (mine are likely newer, and notably lack the IC17 chip. they also have a different layout/shape in general) that there would be some better overvoltage protection, or at least something to reduce potential damage to the ICs. Do you think that could be the case? Is there some test I could do at the moment to check the health of the serial flash ICs?

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

February 6th, 2019, 18:24

The D704 diode test results are too low, even for the working board. :? Note that there is small smt fuse to the right of the "72" Schottky rectifier. It appears to be open circuit on your faulty board, which in turn suggests that there may be more problems further downstream.

BTW, the unpopulated locations at D703 and D704 appear to have been reserved for TVS diodes. It's too bad that Toshiba didn't think the extra few cents were worth spending. :-(

Here is the other thread I was thinking of:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37261

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 4th, 2021, 22:27

I came across this while searching for answers and found this thread. I have a Toshiba X300 5TB HDD that has the same issue. I had missed a power cord when changing power supplies, found my SSD which is attached to same power cord works fine, but my Toshiba doesn't spin up, POST in bios, etc. I tried it in my server for S&G's to see if it would spin up and nothing. How similar is the 5TB board to the 6TB board as I am thinking the same issue is going on. I had the board off and well don't remember the measurements, but I think D704 measured .695V fwd and D703 measured .519V fwd, no measurements in reverse of either. I can attach pictures as needed. no damage is visible on the board.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 5th, 2021, 3:33

Check the diodes below the indicated pads (marked XB and 72) and the 2 small fuses marked (s and blank) to the right of each. Shorted diodes can be removed, shorted fuses need to be replaced/bridged.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 5th, 2021, 9:55

XB fwd voltage is .694, rev is no measurement. 72 is .074 fwd, no measurement in rev. Hard to see what is the fuse as I don't see "s" and "blank" there.
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Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 5th, 2021, 10:02

Ok I tried uploading the pics but then everything disappeared and the site said message has to be approved before posting.....so anyways to finish typing now....I was assuming the little black rectangles are the fuses since they are not labelled. The left most one I measured continuity on the meter. the right one for what I believe is the 5V side measures 5 M ohm, sooooo yeah. Ok looking up in the previous messages I can see them more clearly. Yes....S measures continuity at 0 ohms, blank one has the 5M ohm measurement. I had also found on ebay the same exact drive with the same exact revision number, firmware number, and whatever the number is under the serial number. since everything is the same, could I swap boards to get the data off this drive instead of getting the solder station out to replace a fuse the size of a flea? I'm not that steady as to do that but do have the capabilities of hot air solder iron and liquid solder.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 6th, 2021, 3:56

commo81 wrote:since everything is the same, could I swap boards to get the data off this drive instead of getting the solder station out to replace a fuse the size of a flea?
No, you would also need to transfer the rom over.

Make sure you have sorted the power cables out before doing anything but bridging / replacing the fuse is the easiest, it doesn't have to be pretty just to recover data. If you're struggling any mobile phone repair shop should be able to do this for beer money.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 6th, 2021, 7:42

Is the rom the IC that is embedded so-to-speak in the drive case with 22 pins that contacts the board when the board is screwed back onto the case? if so, how easy is it to pop it out? I'll try first to bridge the fuse when I get home from work. I just need to bridge the fuse for the blank one, since that's the one that had resistance, correct?

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 6th, 2021, 8:23

The ROM or possibly ROMs are the things that look like IC10. I've not had to do a board swap on these drives but there seems to be a debate about needing to take all 4 , IC9-IC12 or not.

Assuming nothing else has been killed and a full PCB picture would help spot the obvious, you may have been lucky and bridging the open fuse should restore power.

If your data is important (worth 300usd) and you're not comfortable then you may want to hand this off to a DR pro over there.

Re: Toshiba Hard Drive not working after Power Supply swap

December 6th, 2021, 23:10

I bridged the bad fuse....not my best solder job.....and still dead in the water....go figure. IDK what to do next, guess I need to pay to have data recovered from it. I did check it with my meter and it read 0 ohms so it should be good but its not.
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