I've had a couple calls from a guy in the US who has had his WD5000AAKS-??YG?? diagnosed at Staples and Best Buy. They have traced the board and found the faulty diode and wants to send the board in to get fixed. I told him that we don't offer that service, but we would be more than happy to properly diagnose his drive and recover his data, should he decide to send it in for our free assessment.

Apparently, he knows more about the data recovery industry than me and says that we should only charge $20 to fix his board. Again, I told him that we don't offer that service and that he could go to any electronics guy to do just that, but warned him that his problem is likely more complicated than what he thinks...even if it weren't, we certainly wouldn't do it for less than our $300 minimum charge.

Anyway, should he call again, which I have a sneaky suspicion he will, any US labs out there wanting the referral?

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Reffer him to Frank "fzabkar". He is the one that says that ROM swap should cost $20.00 or new PCB with ROM swap should cost $40-$60.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Being on the phone with the guy will probably cost more than $20 in wasted time. Plus the annoyance.

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

Tell him to fix the diode himself.

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

Lots of pics of TVS diodes (and burnt inductors / resistors) here:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/

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A backup a day keeps DR away.