Dear forum members,

I'm having a issue with an Samsung SP1604N.
The heads of this drive were broken, and thus i did an successful head swap twice. Both times I preformed
the head swap in a clean room with the head tool for this drive. I know both heads from the donor were 100%
working and the swap was performed without any issues.

The issue I'm having is that with both swaps is get the following error in the terminal of the HDD

UF: 3. 1st Sk err

Unlike other forum members i DON't get
UF: 1. 1st Gray err

Since the PCB was also malfunctioning, i couldn't try it with the original PCB.

Since i believe the error message above indicate the head cannot find the the first sector, i believe i need
to swap the ROM from the original PCB.

Since there is zero information on the internet if A. it needs a ROM to be swapped and B. which one is the ROM of this particular drive.

PS. The head from patient and donor were both FS and Palo. Same firmware FW 100-24. Also the PCB number is the same.

Please help, Thanks in advance !

I can see on Google Images there is a 8 leg chip on PCB of that model, must be the ROM chip. Attach picture of PCB to verify.

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Hi CPM,

Thanks for you quick response. The 8 legged chip is a L5973. Its a Stepdown Sitching regulator.

here are two images of the PCB.

Hi CPM,

Thanks for you quick response. The 8 legged chip is a L5973. Its a Stepdown Sitching regulator.

The images needs to be approved by the moderator, so will take some times before the should be visible

There appear to be a few different versions of the PCB (BF41-00067A or BF41-00067B).

http://www.donordrives.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/650x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/7/_/7_4.jpg
https://www.harddisks.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ES238-FRONT.jpg
https://fr.harddriveparts.com/images/BF41-00067B-pcb-carte-controleur-samsung.jpg
https://www.harddriveparts.com/images/BF41-00067A.jpg
https://www.hddzone.com/images/S10008_SP1604N.jpg

The flash memory is parallel, not serial (AT49F1024).

Notice that the PCB from Donor Drives has a badly broken coil. Also, notice that the tabs of all the spindle motor connectors are in the locked position. I wonder if any of these board jockeys is aware that these tabs need to be retracted before the flex cable is removed.

BTW, I suspect that "Sk err" means "seek error".

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Interesting a big chip like that stores the ROM.

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Thanks Fzabkar for your detailed answer. I have four PCB’s of which three are donor boards and the broken original. All four are of the type:

126-109 polo/veloce rev 9
Bf41-00076A
Fw 100-24

If I understood correctly the AT49F1024 is the ROM?

This holds the information which is required to find the sectors on the platters right?

Also can you tell me howto retrace to connector.

Does the seek error without the gray error explain the missing rom data?
Thank you so much!

AIUI, this model has no adaptive data on the PCB. All that needs to match is the firmware version.

You say that the original heads were damaged. Have you inspected the platters for a head crash? Do the donor heads still work in the donor drive?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi thanks for your reply. The heads still work in the donor drive. When i place the heads in the patient it directly gives me the 1st sk error, but not the grey one. Only Sk err. I have no clue what totdo next. Maby the fw cersion has a dot behind the 100-24? Donor head is rev c while original is rev a. That the only difference.

I would transplant the ROM chip that was pointed out by the other guy to rule out issue with ROM. Time to get the hot air station out

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Maybe the clue is in the failure mode of the original PCB. I could help with voltage measurements ...

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi fzabkar,

Once again thanks for your help. I feel very stupid but i rechecked all the numbers once again.
all the numbers match, but the three donor PCBs are BF41-00076A while the original is BF41-00091A.

Would that explain why the Heads give the error 1st Sk err?
Dont know what the last numbers do, but if they have something todo with the ROM or the Headmap,
this is properbly the issue i suppose...

Whats weird is:

My original PCB is

SP1604N - BF41-00091A - FW: 100-24

While all the PCB's for donors are

SP1604N - BF41-00091A - FW: 100-31

or

SP1604N/R BF41-00091A - FW 100-24 (Notice the R)


So is the SPN1604N/R board compatible with the SP1604N board, with the same firmware and board number?

@themx, IIUC, you have replaced both the PCB and headstack from a donor drive, as a matched pair, yet your patient still reports a "Sk err". All 3 PCBs (67A, 76A and 91A) look very similar, so I don't know where they differ, or if such differences are important.

I still think an examination of the PCB failure may prove to be useful.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi fzabkar,

I tried the PCB from BF41-00091A
This is the result:




Nothing changed. Maby wrong head then? or failed platters?

this harddrive is broken because it was fallen. Thnx

Are you able to dump the ROMs?

FWIW, I have examined a ROM dump from an SP1604 HDD, but I have been unable to find the text strings in your terminal log, even after byte-swapping the ROM. So this begs the question, where are these text strings coming from?

Do you see the same terminal log if you completely disconnect the PCB from the HDA?

What do you see if you connect the spindle motor but isolate the HDA?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

What does the terminal log from a good drive look like?

What do you see on a good drive if you short the read channel?

What do you see on a good drive if you isolate the HDA or spindle motor, or both?

What do you see on a good drive if you short one of the ROM's data pins to ground?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.