Hi there,

I am trying to work out if my HDD is dead from a motor failure or PCB failure. there is no observable damage on the PCB. It failed while i was access data.

When i connect to a powered SATA USB, the usual spinning up doesn't happen and there is some buzzing sounds, repeated 3-4 times before nothing happens.

What i am trying to work out, is the motor dead or spindal seized, or is the PCB not giving the right power.

I have measured the voltage on the motor connectors on a healthy drive while spinning at normal RPM, its either at 3 or 6v depending on connector.

On the suspect drive while its trying to spin up and buzzes the voltage varies, but the voltages never get over 1.5v.

This seems to me to indicate that the PCB is faulty and not giving the motor enough voltage to get turning.

Is there any other way to diagnose if its the PCB or the motor, any locations i can measure voltage on the PCB to confirm its health?

Cheers

It sounds to me like you have whats called 'stiction'. The read-write heads have settled on the platter surface (due to a power outage of some kind) and are stopping the motor from spinning. That is the buzzing sound you can hear. As you can hear this buzzing sound, it is very unlikely to be a PCB issue.

Your hard drive does need professional data recovery help if this is the case. Most professional data recovery companies will give you a free evaluation (or for a nominal fee), so you will know for sure.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

+1 ddrecovery

do not try to fix at home after waching youtube.(YOUTUBE disaster). contact DR centre if you need data.

Agree. Could well be this, but unusual on a WD desktop drive.

Was it in a USB caddy? If it was dropped then it could also be the heads mashed into the ramp stopping the platters from spinning.

Either way, it requires cleanroom work which we can help with

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Totally true, we see SO many DIY disasters

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

I agree 100% DIY can be a disaster.
How about you share your story of how you got started? I think it is very interesting how we all got started in the field of electronics and repair, we all have a story and I love to hear them.

Just recovered data from a x6 2TB WD 3.5" drives RAID-5 array out of a server, where all drives had stiction. I was stunned, but it did happen, on a regular server shut down procedure.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts