Western Digital - WS5000

[Catalyst]

Hello everyone,

I have a 500GB Western Digital WD5000YS-01MPB1 (DCM: HCACAJAHB) drive which has failed in the following manner.

I moved the working drive into another machine as a secondary storage drive (old PC was XP to a new Windows 7 machine) and found that access times were very slow. I thought that it was a software (OS) issue due to NTFS permissions or something, however I suppose now that the drive was failing.

As time went on the disk became slower and eventually disappeared from the OS. Upon reboot the drive was missing from BIOS. I disconnected the drive and power cycled the PC, then I reconnected the drive and it was detected by BIOS however pretty much not accessible in the OS. A short while later the drive would not register in BIOS at all. This was also the case when I tried the drive in another computer also. The drive sounds normal and no clicking is heard.

I have another identical drive which I used to attempt to swap the PCB board with a known working one however if I swap the PCB boards around, both of the drives will be found in BIOS. Both cause the machine not to boot at the same place. I thought that was a bit strange myself, but what would I know.

I was hoping that I might be able to get some oppinions here about the issue and where I stand as someone without skills/resources. I was also hoping that having an identical drive at my disposal might help me somehow.


Thanks in advance,
Mark (Auckland, New Zealand)

[msurgeon]

Swapping PCB with an identical donor will not help because information specific to the drive is contained in ROM. Special tools/skills required for this repair: best left to professionals. That, of course, assumes that PCB is the issue. There are other alternative answers, all beyond scope of end user.

[Catalyst]

Ah, I see, thank you for explaining the PCB swap issue.

Is it possible to have a Data Recovery centre diagnose a PCB issue without having to open up the drive? (In this way I could evaluate if the drive is worth saving at a lower cost I presume)

[msurgeon]

PCB diagnostics does not involve opening the drive.

[pcimage]

Also, heads can be checked without opening the drive.

Any decent DR firm can diagnose the fault without opening.

[networkpc3000]

you may got head or firmware problem i think.

[Catalyst]

Thank you for the information... I have decided to RMA the drive as it is still under warranty.

I appriciate the multiple Private messages offering assistance, however one of the suggestions by 'Headcrash' seemed wrong.

If you have a valuable data, do not attempt to DIY. This drive has a lot of head related issues, i suggest you to send it to a pro.

Closest to you is in Australia. Send a personal message to this member "Terranova"
member6802.html

good luck.

There are pleny of Hard Drive Recovery firms in New Zealand, if I followed this person advice I would have to send my drive away internationally. Perhaps he meant this person able to help at lower cost and does not work in a firm... either way it seems like bad information.

[drc]

I'm sure he meant closest out of people who are known on the forum.

[HDD Spaz]

so much for 'private message'