Hi, I came home the other night to find my PC restarted and not able to boot, giving some sort of error with SATA port 2 (where my primary hard drive, WD CAviar Black 1 TB, was plugged in). Could not hear anything from the hard drive. I took it to work and plugged it into a USB/SATA adapter (briefly) just for kicks, no spinning or anything. I remove the PCB and first thought it might be burned/fried as parts of it looked discolored (mostly the diagonal rectangle to the lower left of the barcode in the first picture), but now that I think about it, I don't see any exploded chips or anything so it might just be stained.

In retrospect (after doing more research) I realize this was a bad move, but on the advice of a co-worker (we work in IT) we tried swapping the PCB with another WD SATA6 drive, a Caviar Blue 250 GB, which, when hooked up to the USB adapter, caused it to sort of spin (and make some other not-so-promising noises, not sure if it was the click of death or what though) but it couldn't be mounted. We disconnected it within 30 seconds, did not see or smell any signs of burning, not sure if we did any damage otherwise.

For a little while (after doing research) I thought maybe I could just swap the PCB (and the U12 ROM chip), but now I'm not so sure . I apologize for any ignorance, I've browsed several forums including this one but was a bit overwhelmed and figured I'd better just post my exact situation rather than try to apply other situations to my own. Any advice as to the next step to see if anything can be recovered (or not!) would be much appreciated. Below I've attached various pictures that should be helpful, showing both sides of the PCB and all the information on the HDD itself. For the purposes of showing up in the search, the PCB number is 2060-771640-003 REV P1, firmware appears to be 00Z3A0, and the DCM is HARNHTJABB. Please let me know if you need any other info.

In any event, I think I've been taught not to procrastinate on backups anymore .

WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 is the model number of that hard drive. You need to get a model that matches the bolded parts. The italicized parts should be as close as possible. There is a sticker on the PCB, yours says: 2051-771540-H03. The donor PCB must match the bolded part. Then you do need to swap the U12 chip, because the serial ROM has adaptive information.

There is a possibility that by swapping the board with an incompatible one you damaged the preamp chip. This is only an issue if the other board uses different preamp voltages.

Actually there is a -771640- board.....This is what user must match.....

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Yup, 2060-771640-003 REV P1 needs to match for donor PCB selection.

OP could test resistance of D3 and D4 to check for a short.

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Thanks guys! So I ordered the same model hard drive yesterday on the off-chance that it has the same PCB. It doesn't, though; sticker says 2061-771702-101 AE (board says 2060-771702-001 REV A. DCM: HANCHTJCAB. Firmware: 00Y9A0. I assume I shouldn't even bother with a PCB swap, with or without U12 chip? If there's >0 chance of that working, I might give it a shot, but otherwise if I risk potential further damage I'll look for the right PCB.

Before you do anything else measure the resistance on 200 ohm setting of D3, D4, R64, R67 which are all at the top right of your PCB in the 3rd picture of your first post.

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Will do, I'll need to buy a cheap digital multimeter first, though. Anything I need to look for specifically in a multimeter (I've heard diode-mode mentioned) or will most ~$20 (US) models do? I'd borrow one but figure I might as well have one for the future anyway, and I'm not sure if anyone I know has one. Now I regret forgetting everything I learned in high school electronics class!

Alright, I bought a $20 multimeter from Radioshack. I set it to 200 Ohms mode (there is a diode mode but not sure if that's any use here) and got the following results, which I'm not sure what to make of:
D3: 0L
D4: 0L
R64: 0.00
R67: 0.00

(I didn't see a D4 diode... I assume it's the one above the R64, with the diode symbol?)

Any advice based on these results?

Those measurements mean that a specific situation which Nick_CT was getting you to check for, and which might have a DIY fix, does not apply in your case.

Bummer... what would be the next step then, try to get an exact matching PCB and transfer U12 chip over to it?

I don't know if you were aiming that question at me - I don't work with WD disks, so I'll let those who have already been advising you, continue to do that. I only replied to the basic electronics point above in case Nick was busy and hadn't seen the result of his suggested test.

Like Vulcan said, the measurements from your multimeter readings look OK, so there's no easy DIY-type repair unfortunately.

If I were in your position, I would:

1) Get a working, matching PCB: 2060-771640-003 REV P1
2) Swap the ROM chip at U12 from patient (your dead one) PCB to donor PCB

If the fault was purely confined to the PCB, adaptive data in ROM is OK and other HDD components are OK (preamp for example) then your drive should spin up and function correctly. In terms of whether or not the donor PCB you already have (2060-771702-001 REV A) will work or not, I can't say. With other brands (Seagate for example) you can use a PCB with different board numbers, the boards can even have ICs on them from different manufacturers, and the board will work if you've done your homework in terms of compatibility. With WD drives I've only ever used an identical match for PCB work so I can't comment I'm afraid.

Remember that doing the above involves risks. If you damage the ROM chip you're in trouble. Any tinkering could make the problem worse and increase the fee if you decide to send the drive to a professional in the end, or worst case you could ruin the drive beyond recovery. So I would say if you want to try it yourself and know the risks involved, then the above has a chance of working. If the data is important to you I'd recommend sending it to a pro and know it's in safe hands. If it's just a PCB issue it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

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Data Recovery Cape Town

I second Nick's post.

If you are not comfortable with the hot air gun and the soldering tasks, don't try it.
Give it to a local TV repair shop (they should be able to do this for you for lets say $20), or even better send it to a pro.
These types of failures can be easy or they can be very tricky. If there is internal damage to the disk (for example preamp) then more things need to be made in order to recover data.

Good luck!

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Thanks for the advice everybody! I'll probably look for a matching PCB and see if they can transfer the U12 chip too (I don't have any soldering experience and am not sure about the electronics repair shops in NYC). The data's probably not worth more than ~$150 to me, but if I can get it back for under that I might as well give it a shot.