I have two almost identical of these drives.

They only differs in what looks like to be the firmware version:
the bad one is MLC69005 (its motor doesn't spin up anymore) with P/N 07N9679
the good one is MLC68883 with P/N 07N8450

on the boards them self, the motor driver is for both 90G2018 but on the good board it is "2C3 5" while on the bad one it is "2E2 5"

Swapping the boards makes the motor to spin up, but the head makes just and only one click.

Now what is the best practice to do in such situation?

Naturally I'd like to copy the data.

I'm in touch with a micro-electronic laboratory and they can do a good job swapping ICs (if this can make sense)... yes... but which IC?

Would you swap the motor controller on the defective board or the firmware IC on the good board?

Looking at the picture, the first on the left is the motor controller (right?).
Can you kindly tell me which of the remaining two is the chip with the firmware?

Thank you for any help and tip.

Robert

No need to touch any of the big ones. If ur boards are same - u need to take ROM from position U6 of ur dead drive , soldier it on a good PCB , and put that PCB on the dead drive. Should work unless there is preamplifier damage , in that case u are in for some spending. Note , dead preamplifier can cause havoc with ur drive. Kill ur donor PCB as well.

Thank you Alexii for the answer

You mean not the LC66, but the low profile one to its left right?
Only 8 pins, correct?

Thank you for the clarification.

Robert

That is correct m8.

About the preamplifier...
I've already set the good board on the dead drive.

As told above, the motor spins and the head/heads are moving only for one CLICK. No life signs at BIOS level on my pc.

I hope your tip gives some result

One kind question, which is the equivalent IC (firmware IC) on one Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 or DiamondMax 22 ? Thank you also for this (either if a bit off topic)

Thank you
Roberto

On the new HDDs what can be called FW is actually writen on the platters of the drive. Some limited ammount of adaptive info is ether embeded in MCU ( ur biggest chip on the PCB ) or some drives ( like ur IBM ) hold it in eeproms ( like urs at the position U6 )

It would probably have a "25" in the part number.

See my notes for more information:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HDD_ICs.txt

I suspect that 2E2 and 2C3 are date codes.

2 = 2002
C = March, E = May
2 = week 2 of month, 3 = week 3

The date code on the EEPROM is 220, ie 2002, week 20. That's towards the end of May.

Hi,
PCB board for IC35L080VVNOF-0 with the same problem?
Ic U6 is missing from this board.

You need to transfer the NVRAM IC at U5 (LC66), not U6.

On your board the contents of U6 are internal to the MCU (the largest chip).

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

tks fzabkar,but....
I have not two PCB.
may you send me a dump from EEPROM?(U5)

The contents of U5 are unique to each PCB. I don't have any EEPROM dumps, but even if I did, they would be of no use to you.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Oh. Really ?

???
If must replace U5,why not rewrite EEPROM?

Try and see

I don't need a" blow up" in my house

Nothing will explode or catch fire, don't worry. But maybe it will end with an unusable drive...

According to Salvation Data's articles, yes. Otherwise why would Alexii suggest that the IC needs to be swapped?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm sure, but I think the change Ic is the same as rewriting (if Ic is good)
I think Alexii suggest that because sometime Ic can be defective (not only corrupted data inside).
Normally it is better to change Ic rewrited with good data.

I ask NOT to send me broken PCBs with the drives....