The HDD doesnt get recognized in OS.

When I apply power to the HDD without SATA Connection, the drive spins up and makes few clicking noises with pause, then again few clicking noises. Then drive spins down.

When I connect to PC it spins up, makes clicking noise, pause, clicking noise, pause, and so on... Doesnt spin down....

I already checked TVS Diodes and 0Ohm resistors. I can see no damages on PCB.
I also cleaned Oxidized connectors.

Next I want to try to swap PCBs, so I ordered donor PCB from Ebay:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Hard-Disk-HDD-P ... 2749.l2649

It has exact same Partnumber, but comes from an WD2500AAJS drive.

Is it enough when I swap U12 ROM?

Is there anything else I can do?

The HDD already had a few bad sectors before it completely went dead... I checked with SMART Tool....

The Data isnt THAT important to me... I try it just for "fun".

Thanks!!!

Then most likely the PCB is ok and the problem is with bad head(s) and/or pre-amp.

The drive does need clean room service and it's not DO-IT-YOURSELF ...

Sorry.

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Yes, but don't get your hopes up. :-(

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Absolutely right, it’s less than 0.1% chance it’s PCB on this model.

Most of the time the heads are bad and/or damaged on these, and the more you power it up the more damage you are doing, letting the damaged heads scrape the platters.

We have seen loads of these with heads mangled and/or broken off, often after a power outage.

Normally damaged heads are caused by physical force, but we’ve seen so many of these from desktop PC’s with the clients swearing blind it’s not been knocked that we are of the opinion there’s some issue with the heads dismounting mechanism.

If your data is important then PLEASE STOP killing this drive and seek pro assistance.

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

Then I will try Head Stack Swap for Fun.

I have access to an laminar flow box at work.

I think I already found a good donor on ebay.

OK...I got my Donor drive yesterday. So I swapped Heads, PCB and EEPROM today at work.

Then I powered up the drive: "Nothing." No spin up...nothing.

Then I swapped PCBs again. (With the EEPROM from donor drive) Drive Spun up, and after a minute or so I really saw the Partitions come up in Windows.
So I fired up HDclone to make a drive Image. Didnt work...0% after 20min. (I heard the Heads working, but saw no progress in HDclone.)

Then I swapped the original EEPROM back to original PCB. "Nothing."
Looks like I killed my original EEPROM.

Do I have any chance now?

If I hadnt swapped the F...ng EEPROMS , it could have worked...

Why the hell did you swap the PCB and the ROM chip ?

If you replaced the head stack correctly and assuming the drive did had only head issues and no firmware problems (caused by bad heads adding sectors to pending list, etc) a direct head swap + using the native PCB should have worked (assuming no need to play with microjogs) ....

Now you killed ROM ...

You could have read ROM first using WDMarvel, WDR, etc .... No need to swap ROM chip ...

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=1127

Funny thing is that you did mess up the easy part after managing to swap the head stack (dificult part).

Now you need to patch your ROM ....

There are no copies of ROM modules on platter as your drive does have external ROM chip ...

You need to regenerate ROM modules to match original ROM ...

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=2526

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I'd be interested to see how this goes if you end up messing with it any more. Guys here helped me diagnose a very similar situation a little while ago, all the way down to using a 250 donor PCB to jump-swap the 320.

Good luck on it!

thanks for sharing,,
i have same situation on severals PCB to hot swap,,
so now i know, how no to swap CHIP,, only write how this tutorial ... TKs

Sooo....do I need to regenerate the whole content of the ROM? Or just Module 47h?

Sorry...I dont have any clue about HDD Firmware...

Why do they put some Modules in Flash ROM on PCB, and some in SA?

How can I access SA of my drive?

Do you stil have the original PCB and the compatible PCB ?

Maybe you shoul do one last test.

Try to copy the original ROM dump to the donor PCB and see if it stil clicks ...

I did had a very recent case with a WD drive with PCB problem (original PCB wouldn't even power up the drive) and when i did replace original PCB with compatible one the drive would just click. When i did move the ROM code over the drive start working normaly. Might be worth one last check ...

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hello Spildit


when replacing the ROM needs the patient and donor is connected turned on?

Can I Rebuild ROM with WDmarvel?

It is also possible the original problem was with the pcb only.

By fzabkar
I remember other members have also mentioned the problem in various threads.

What ?

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Yes. But using manual procedure only.

You do need to copy ROM modules from donor ROM resource and rebuild adaptives using the info on the provided links. On your drive model it should be possible and relatively easy.

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So I understand module 47 regeneration should be enough...

I will try to "comprehend" the info in the link.

You guys are ingenious...

I have to agree with that .... It's a Pinclite drive so the first thing to try would be PCB swap with ROM copy but normaly those drives wouldn't simply click and spin down ... They normaly allow some LBA reading and also some SA access even when PCB is "bad" ....

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1067

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dear
I cann't understand very well about hot swap and smart hot swap,,pleaase can clarify this?

hot swap:
1 - read ROM Donor
2 - spin down sleep
3 - swap PCB to patient
4 - spin up
5 - read modules or write modules
5 - power off-On

smart hot swap:
1 - read modules patient
2 - swap PCB to donor
3 ???

my question if I just read the patient's ROm and write to the donor, I'm doing a hot swap?
or only i need read ROM patient, turn OFF, swap PCB, turn ON and write ROM to Donor?