WD400 spins up but keeps being idle

[PelzigesOhr]

Hi,

I've just found my old, broken WD400BB hard drive and thought I'd give it a try.

The hard drive spins up, gets recognised by the bios and the operating system but sadly that's all it does. When trying to read data from the device in Linux I wound up with about 40GBs of zeros (there is something else at the start of the file, I can't make out what it is, though).

Bios recognising the hard drive

Here's what happens when I plug the hard drive into an usb enclosure:

Code:

[ 2638.880953] usb 7-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 2639.014555] usb 7-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 2639.015152] scsi11 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 2644.005907] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WDC WD40 0BB              7W17 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
[ 2644.007874] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] 78165360 512-byte hardware sectors (40021 MB)
[ 2644.008747] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[ 2644.009870] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] 78165360 512-byte hardware sectors (40021 MB)
[ 2644.010617] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[ 2644.010624]  sdd:<6>sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense Key : No Sense [current]
[ 2644.012991] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] Add. Sense: No additional sense information
[ 2644.017377]  unknown partition table
[ 2644.017417] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
[ 2644.017453] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0


Afterwards I hooked it up to an IDE port of another machine and gave MHDD a run. S.M.A.R.T. isn't working and MHDD generates "S" errors only. I've attached 3 pictures of the bios and MHDD recognising the hard drive. I also attached a picture of the errors shown in MHDD.

MHDD recognising the hard drive

MHDD errors

Additionally I recorded the sounds my hard drive is making when starting, trying to read something and stopping. The sounds coming from the hard drive when reading is most noticeable when reading lower sectors and gets more and more quiet when reading higher sectors.

wd400bb1.mp3.zip

WD400BB starting, trying to read something and stopping

(493.33 KiB) Downloaded 668 times

I'm new to all this hard drive repairing stuff and to this forum and just trying to provide you with as much information I can get. Can you make any useful assumptions out of this? The MHDD FAQ says, that in case MHDD reports 100% bad blocks "it is either a head crash, pcb damage or firmware issue".

[pepe]

Probably translator problem, U need pro help.
"no user servicable parts inside"

pepe

[unknown]

It's a PCB and Translator problem I think.

The drive not recognized correctly.

replace PCB and free HDD_Repair software may solve your problem

Good luck

[pcimage]

I wouldn't think it's a PCB probem at ll, it's almost certainly a translator issue like pepe says IMHO.

Doubtfull HDD_Repair would be able to fix this, use this at your peril.

If you just want to repair the drive then by all means give it a whirl, but if you need the data then do not attempt the repair yourself.

[PelzigesOhr]

First of all thank you for your advice so far.

It'd be cool to get data off of the hard drive, but honestly I don't even know what's on it anymore.

Data recovery is expensive, but exploring files dating back 8 years would be cool. It's kind of like a time capsule

So let's try something harmless first: Just in case the assumption that the PCB is faulty is true the PCB of my hard drive should not work in another hard drive and show similar problems, right? If yes: Which components of the PCB do I have to switch? My guess is the U2 chip, a picture of the same PCB layout I have is in this thread: wtb-wd400bb-hard-drive-for-head-swap-t13564.html?hilit=wd400bb%20swap#p90678

Where can I find this HDD_Repair tool? And is there a manual available? Google didn't provide me with any useful search results.

[unknown]

http://files.hddguru.com/download/Softw ... pair.v2.0/

Good luck

[Zero Alpha]

Data recovery is expensive

Have you had a quote?

[rzr]

Hi,
When trying to read data from the device in Linux I wound up with about 40GBs of zeros (there is something else at the start of the file, I can't make out what it is, though).

how do you read those GB ? using a raw dd dump ?
because I got I/O errors on my WD400 see :

http://rzr.online.fr/q/ata

[unknown]

Duplicated post, sorry.