At first many thanks for this great forum. It is really very very helpful!

I have a problem with a Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 80GB SATA - 6Y080M0

After reading a lot of posts in the forum I have come to the conclusion that I have to change the PCB Board.

The characteristics of my HDD are:

Code: YAR51BW0
Main Controller IC: 040111300(agere Ardent C8-C1)
HDD Motor Combo IC: L7250E 1.2
Board Number: 301520104
R5FYA

I have searched ebay and found a PCB Board with the same characteristics except code which is YAR51FW0
I know that this code declares the firmware version.

Are these two PCB boards compatible?
Is my HDD going to work (if the problem of hdd is actually the PCB) ?

Thanks!!!

What was the original problem?

I was using this HDD to boot a windows XP OS.

Yesterday as windows loading a blue screen appeard for half a second and the system reboot.
The same thing was repeating. I tried to boot in safe mode, restore etc but always rebooting.

I thought it was a hardware problem so I open the pc case to take a look if any device had a problem.
Actually I unplugged and plugged again all the devices. When I tried to unplugged the hdd sata cable I noticed that the plastic part of the hdd's sata pinout has been broken into the sata's cable plug.

I tried to placed it again with the cable and to boot the OS but nothing. The BIOS recognized the HDD but till there. Windows didn't load.

I placed the hdd to another pc that boots from another hdd. The bios recognized the hdd but the windows freezed while was loading.

This is the whole situation.

Probably while plugging/unplugging you damaged the connectors or they were already damaged. Either a repair or a new PCB could identify the problem. Does the drive calibrate when powered up ? If YES maybe the problem is in the connector area, if NO, either a PCB or firmware problem or both.

Ok, I got it. Thanks for your help.

As I wrote in my first post...

The characteristics of my HDD are:
Code: YAR51BW0
Main Controller IC: 040111300 (agere Ardent C8-C1)
HDD Motor Combo IC: L7250E 1.2
Board Number: 301520104
R5FYA

I have found the same board but the only difference is the firmware YAR51FW0 (F instead of B).

Is it compatible with mine?