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Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 8:36

Sure this is a fairly common issue but I can't find a solution so far..

I have a customer's Toshiba Canvio Connect II 1TB external hard drive that was intermittently working. He has bought another case for it but it still doesn't work properly. Is there any way that an MRT Ultra can help work on this drive to recover his data?

Obviously this is a drive with a non standard connection to the USB cable not a standard SATA one.

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 8:49

Look at the usb pcb and find it's correct equivalent in sata.

After that operate it as you would any sata drive.

Jared has a nice list here:

https://www.data-medics.com/forum/toshi ... t1305.html

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 11:48

Thanks, I'll do that. Does the ROM chip have to be moved to the new board?

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 12:21

That's always a risk. The customer is reluctant to spend much money, at least I think so from the way he has spoken, so it will be up to him..

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 14:06

Customer has shown me the original drive and a similar one he has sourced (a brand new drive).

Here's what seems to happen.

Old Drive and original PCB. - No sign of life in either Windows or Linux computer.
Old Drive and new PCB. – Light comes on and disk attempts to load but light goes out after about 30 seconds and loses all power.

New Drive and original PCB No sign of life in either Windows or Linux computer
New Drive and new pcb Light comes on and disk attempts to load but light goes out after about 30 seconds and loses all power.

Doubt there is much I can do with this..

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 25th, 2019, 14:35

I'm guessing that the PCB's weren't a match and he's damaged things even more. Either way, he doesn't seem inclined to pay much as there are only "documents and photos" on the drive...

Thanks for the help.

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 26th, 2019, 6:44

No swap has been done so far. He's bought a "similar" hard drive but not an exact match and just moved the PCB to the old drive. Obviously that didn't work and now the new drive doesn't work when the PCB is refitted to it. I think he has damaged the new PCB as well.

He seems convinced that all that needs to be done is to swap the ROM chip to the new PCB and his drive will spring into life. Because he has seen a 5 minute video of this on YouTube it shouldn't cost more than a few pounds.. I'm told him I'm not going to take the job on..

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 26th, 2019, 7:57

Could we see detailed photos of both PCBs (component side)?

Re: Recovery From External USB Hard Drive

April 26th, 2019, 8:13

I've given them back to him. The original one was clearly damaged near the connection point. I think he had tried to clean it with something abrasive. The new one had a different build date and the firmware didn't match.
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