I'm helping a friend replace a mainboard in a HP Pavilion M8000. I've replaced quite a few and I'm generally very careful with all of the components. With that said...

The mainboard replacement went fine (except it now comes up on the screen as a Compaq lol), but one of his two Hitachi 320GB drives seems completely inaccessible. I've tried different SATA ports, and I also put it in a SATA/USB enclosure. Same thing.

It spins up fine. Then a few seconds after, if you put your ear within 6 inches of the drive, you can hear a faint click. No beeps that I can tell.

Here's what's on the label of the drive:

FEB-2008
P/N:0A36889
MLC:BA2763
RPM:7200RPM
A145121
FR:57A HR:11
CAPACITY:320GB
E182115 CN

MODEL:HDP725032GLA380

I'd *usually* assume that clicking would be some sort of head failure, but this is very faint.

Could someone help? Are we SOL? Thanks in advance!

Maybe its not a Motherboard that has a problem?

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

No, the old motherboard had 6 bulging capacitors on it. It was pretty unstable, and the drive was accessible before the replacement - but any time in the OS would quickly bring a random blue screen.

(Now that's not saying this system didn't have MULTIPLE problems, and I only noticed the one, but the motherboard was obvious)

The replacement motherboard is an OEM replacement. Exact model refurb. All capacitors look good.

Any help? Is there any other information I could provide that would help? I'm assuming that this drive is a goner, but would like to hear from another person what their thoughts are.

Thanks in advance.

Any DIY testing / troubleshooting has risks (e.g. you causing ESD damage, you dropping the drive or your screwdriver slipping, a dog / cat / child dragging a cable attached to the PC and the whole lot crashing to the floor etc.), so only continue if you (and the system owner) are prepared to accept those risks, and preferably have minimised them. If the data on the disk is very valuable, you may want to consider using the services of a reputable DR company without further troubleshooting, to reduce the risks of you causing additional problems.


Just to be clear - you've tried connecting that drive to a SATA port & power cable, where the other drive works OK. Is that correct?

And when you say "completely inaccessible", are you just referring to recognition in Windows (and were you checking just My Computer or also Device Manager?), or is the drive also missing from the BIOS setup screen (when it's attached directly via SATA)?

I'm also assuming that you didn't change anything other than the motherboard, since nothing else was mentioned. Is that correct?


Just one click or several?

Further troubleshooting suggestions are possible (e.g. use of MHDD) but could be a waste of time explaining, especially if drive is not recognised by the BIOS.

Assuming the drive is not recognised by the BIOS on a known-good power & data connection, and since you had just been changing the motherboard, I see some possible causes as including: mechanical shock to the drive (if there were any knocks during the motherboard exchange); unseen mechanical damage to the drive's PCB (same comment as before - depending on the exposure of the drive's PCB and any knocks it could have received); ESD damage to the drive (were you taking full ESD precautions, and did you confirm their effectiveness?); or just bad luck, and the drive was going to fail on the next power-cycle anyway. None of which mean that the drive is a "goner" (as you put it ), just that you'd need to use the services of a DR company to recover its data.

Although I think this is unlikely to work, you could test that drive when it is re-attached to the original motherboard - just to confirm that this problem is not an incompatibility between the new motherboard and that drive.

Just to be clear - you've tried connecting that drive to a SATA port & power cable, where the other drive works OK. Is that correct?

Yes. I've also tried putting it in a USB enclosure with its seperate power suppy and experienced no difference.

And when you say "completely inaccessible", are you just referring to recognition in Windows (and were you checking just My Computer or also Device Manager?), or is the drive also missing from the BIOS setup screen (when it's attached directly via SATA)?

Missing from BIOS setup. The other same modeled 320GB does show up in the BIOS.

I'm also assuming that you didn't change anything other than the motherboard, since nothing else was mentioned. Is that correct?

Yes.

Just one click or several?

It's a faint click that repeats at (roughly) one second intervals. Before that, the drive spins up as usual.

were you taking full ESD precautions, and did you confirm their effectiveness?

I was, indeed, wearing a electrostatic wrist strap attached to the case during the motherboard install, but I don't feel I could tell you with certainty how completely effective it might have been. I never felt a shock during the process, but I honestly can't be sure that ESD wasn't somehow the culprit.

I'm not sure that he'll go for a DR recovery as the cost would probably be considerable. I'll tell him it's an option though.

Thanks for the very clear answers - those help to clarify the situation. I work in electronics within the data storage industry, not in DR, so here are my comments from that viewpoint.

The repeated clicking is bad news, and given that the power source is "known good" (having been used successfully for another similar drive), then that clearly points towards the drive itself.

I'm not blaming you regarding ESD (which is only one possible guess at this stage), and using a wrist strap is a good step however as I have received more ESD training and also done more research into this area professionally, it's clear that there is much more to effective ESD control (especially with modern components with their increased ESD-sensitivity compared with those from years ago), which most people are not aware of.

Assuming that nothing unusual happened during the motherboard replacement, which you could link in any way to this situation (to give us other ideas about the possible cause), then I can see a few options depending on the value of the data, time criticality for getting that data etc.:

- Engage a DR company now - some give free or low-cost evaluations (and reputable companies can be recommended by members here), but if your friend has no sensible budget to pay for a recovery, then don't waste their time; or

- Put the drive in a sealed metallised (not pink) ESD bag, with a dessicant bag, and then into a box with lots of packing (in case the box is dropped), and store it while saving money to engage a DR company later; or

- Give up and ditch the drive (be aware that the data is not necessarily beyond recovery, so if there is any personal data on the drive, I would destroy the platters and not just give the drive for recycling "intact"); or

- Take a slim chance on the unlikely possibility of a PCB fault (specifically a damaged Read Channel component) is the cause of your problem, and not heads, preamp, firmware or other internal problems. In that case, a compatible replacement PCB (and transfer of the necessary component(s) from the existing PCB to the replacement) just might fix the drive - but with these specific symptoms it's a long shot IMHO, and you could easily be spending money for no benefit, and that money could have gone towards paying a DR company for their work.

I'm not an expert with matching PCBs (there is a different section of the forum where people can look for sellers of PCBs), and personally I probably wouldn't bother trying a replacement PCB, but if your friend decides that it's a max $100 budget (for example), then that would likely eliminate any professional help, but a PCB replacement might be possible.

Other people may see further options for you, but you earlier asked for views, so you've now got mine - which is worth exactly what was paid for it

Good luck!