Hi all.

So, I was asked to try and recover data (years and years of family photos) from a friend's HDD. I was told that it stopped working after a power spike. She took the drive to a computer repair shop, but they asked over 1500€ for the service.

This is the drive's info:
MDL: WD10EAVS-00D7B1
WWN: 50014EE1AC4277BA
DATE: 20 FEB 2009
DCM: HARNHT2MAN
LBA: 1953525168


I plugged it on my computer and booted the machine. The drive started spinning and clicked as expected, but then just stopped. I confirmed the motor had stopped by measuring voltage on its connectors - it was 0V all around.

In the meanwhile I had entered the BIOS and got this:



Unsure of how to proceed, I shut the computer down, removed the drive and started searching online. I found various mentions to a possible PCB failure, or of one of its components.





Tested diodes D3 and D4 with a multimeter, they worked as expected. Been thinking of getting a new PCB to swap (with the same codes as the previous image), but there's no chip on U12, so my life's not easy on that avenue either - from what I'm reading the firmware is located on teh Marvell chip, correct?

Right now, I'm not exactly sure how to proceed, as I lack the tools to properly swap the Marvell chips between boards. I've been given a contact of a technician that has those tools, and often does work for a local computer shop in repairing motherboards and graphics cards... so that's a possibility.


Anyhoo, what do you guys think? Should I go ahead with the PCB idea? I also heard of a live-swap/hot-swap procedure... from my limited understanding this is simpler than the whole soldering/desoldering process, but would it work? I just need the drive to work long enough to copy the data to somewhere else.....

Most Probably Problem with Heads changing PCB or Live Swap wont help you if Data is important give it to Pro. Good Luck..........

Well... wouldn't I get loud clicking sounds on boot if that was the case? Kinda like in the 2nd link here:

http://www.datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

Agree, PCB swap or "live swap" will NOT help you at all and potentially make things a whole lot worse.

I must say though, €1500 does sound very steep

Unless there's more serious underlying issues (e.g. platter damage)

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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

Most often when WD Marvel series drives have a blown PCB you'll get absolutely nothing, no spin up, no clicks, nothing. The fact that it is spinning up and back down, I'd say there's about a 0.001% chance the problem has anything to do with the PCB. So I wouldn't waste the time or take the unnecessary risk trying to replace the PCB. It's almost certainly either failed read/write heads or service area damage and will need to be handled by a professional.

Since you're in Portugal why not send it to PCLab http://www.pclab.com.pt/

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Thanks for the replies, you were really helpful - I was really hoping it would be something I could fix on my own and spare my friend a hefty bill, but I guess we weren't that lucky.

pcimage, this is just for my personal curiosity's sake: wouldn't platter damage cause scratching noises during the spin up/down of the HDD? Or is that something that can only be identified when opening the HDD's case? (don't worry, I won't do it - as I said, just personal curiosity )

data-medics: Thanks for the link, I wasn't aware of that store. I'll pass it along, hopefully they'll be able to help.