Funny SAMSUNG drive - HM400LX

[yco]

Hello Gurus!

I just got funny Samsung drive. Looks like it is custom built for Freecom, no info on it anywhere on the Internet
It had a bad fall so I need to replace heads in it. Got another one, exactly the same and I hope it will do. Look at the pictures:


Full size pictures available here http://pokazywarka.pl/yrv933/

I hope heads will match as I cannot see no typical markings to match donor drive (or perhaps there are but I don't know what to look for), but more than that, I will need to build SATA interface to connect it straight to PC3000.
There are three pins that should be Ground and Supply (5V) lines and four pins that should ne A+, A-, B+, B- so I just need to figure out which are which. By the way - will that bypass USB-to-SATA bridge or do I need to disable it somehow?
By the way - has any of you met this drive before? I may not be so lucky next time to get exact same drive for parts, so how to find suitable standard drive in that case? HM400LI seems to be the origin but what parameters do I need to look at to match suitable donor?

Cheers,
Pawel.

[BlackST]

Assuming you have a clean room environment, did you open it already?

Note : it's not made for FREECOM, there's nothing strange in it.

Just curious : what do you want to do with PC3000 ?

[yco]

Yes, I do have clean room. Opened already and found Head1 crashed. Heads jammed in a parking ramp. Cannot see any physical damage on the top platter, cannot confirm condition on surface 1 and 2 but the problem is that the head is slightly bent and possibly surface has been damaged.

What I need PC3000 for is DataExtractor. After reviving the disk it may be very unstable and imaging it over USB would be quite dificult.

[BlackST]

Then you have everything.

[yco]

Removed platters from housing and found plattern surface 0 and 1 badly damaged. Surface 2 and 3 doesn't have visible physical damage but I won't even attempt to swap heads, there is no point as they will die almost instantly. I was hoping the head never reached the plattern surface and simply got jammed and bent on impact while parked outside. No luck this time

[BlackST]

Ouch! Well, hdds are not designed to withstand such stress...

[Cleanroom]

Western Digital is doing the same thing with new Passport drives. Integrated USB on the logic board.

[prodata]

Western Digital is doing the same thing with new Passport drives. Integrated USB on the logic board.

it is a good idea for manufacturer. but not for user. I personally still prefer assembly by myself external Harddrive by purchase external case and Harddrive.....

[N.C.]

Western Digital is doing the same thing with new Passport drives. Integrated USB on the logic board.

it is a good idea for manufacturer. but not for user. I personally still prefer assembly by myself external Harddrive by purchase external case and Harddrive.....

Yes, agree.

This is always the best way to get what you want!

Janos

[dirk0008]

yco,

Hi Pawel,

I have the same hdd from samsung and I think even from the same batch (the numbers match almost perfectly, only the 4 digits at the end where yours has "5145" mine has "3598".

I dropped mine and now it's dead and ofcourse I have loads of important info on it and I really want those pictures back. I can hear it start spinning when I connect it, no clicking sounds whatsoever but it doesn't show up in device and/or diskmanager. I think the chip or cb is toast and I wanted to swap the cb for a similar one.

Can you, by any chance send me your circuitboard as you are obviously not using it anymore. I do hope you still have it.

Hope to hear from you,

Regards,

DW

[Vulcan]

I'm not yco but I think you are wasting your time due to mis-diagnosis...

I have the same hdd from samsung
[...]
I dropped mine
[...]
I can hear it start spinning
[...]
I think the chip or cb is toast and I wanted to swap the cb for a similar one.

If you have dropped the disk, but it still spins, then IMHO the most likely damage is not the "cb" (PCB). A professional diagnosis would be able to confirm / deny this.