When matching donor for Hitachi 2.5 drives

[Alexii]

Heya all. I am sure some ppl knew that for a while , i just recently tryed it out and with a lot of trial and error on head swaps - it seems that when matching 2.5 hitachi drives u need to take into account the sticker on the PCB. It contains 4 lines , and the first 2 lines have to be matched. At the moment i am sticking heavy to this rule when hunting for donors. Can anyone confirm / deny the claim ? Ty.

[Alexii]

Ill interprete the silence of the gurus as a confirmation. If id be wrong i am sure smbd would have gloated at my noobiness =))

PS Would make a nice movie title IMO. Silence of the gurus. Has a nice ring to it.

[CK]

your question is a little vague, you should clarify why you need a donor - pcb or heads failure?

[pcimage]

CK is spot on, for PCB swap then the first two lines are a good guide (not 100% though) but heads can be a lot more forgiving as far as donors are concerned.

[Alexii]

ty for reply gents. heads is actually what i am after. Compatible heads. I found myself dealing with a LOT of hitachi 2.5s HTS54******* drives. Boss says heads. I order a matching donor ( holding model and MLC + date as guidline) swap heads - clickidy. Put heads back into donor - they work. Buy another donor. Swap heads - clicky. Back in donor - works. And finaly on one of the jobs i got a donor ( by luck ) with same sticker label on the PCB. And transplant worked flawlessly. I checked the previous ones , ordered a donor with a PCB sticker matching same model and MLC compleatly diffrerent - and it worked. So now i am considering MLC none issential to head compatibility but PCB sticker and model + date a must. Was wondering if anyone more experienced can confirm. Thx.

[CK]

I'm having big problems with matching heads on the new hitachi drives. Matching all the "usual" bits doesn't guarantee a heads match from what I've seen lately. Specifically on dual platter drives with 3 heads - which 3 are there is anybodys guess from the label.

[HDD Spaz]

I lot of the drives I see have bad media. Maybe you are matching a lot but the heads are dying.

I try to match as much as possible.

[Alexii]

When i put the heads back they work... So media or swap itself didnt kill em... Anyways Ty fot the reply all. I am geting another one in , will let u know. ( this one is HTS7****** though )

[pcrecovery]

Aside from the obvious headmap min. config., I like to pay attention to the chips themselves on PCB. It is not surprise to me that the PCB matching works better for you that the drive label itself. On modern seagates, I look at the chips on PCB too...alot of newer drives we need to look at adaptive info and chipsets...just my 2cents. Let me know how it works for your HTS72xx

[Alexii]

Ok now. Ded drive is HTS723232L9SA60. MLC DA2459. 11 Sep 08. Thailand.
PCB 0A57104
DA2344A

Donor Model HTS723232L9SA60. MLC DA2459. Date is 17 NOV 2008.
PCB 0A71284
DA2815

Will post here when i get the drive and swap em heads. Damn i hope they are compatible.

[zebong]

post the news about that.

I am having also a lot of problems in matching heads in some hitachi disk.

Match i can Match but work is other question

Sometimes i could also match the DATE and nothing the disk click, also try the other H1.

In some cases i can belive that the side 0 and side 1 can have scraths....

[mattbrad2]

This thread would be a lot easier to read if the grammar wasn't so completely off the wall.

[drc]

I'm sure your grammar on non-native language forums is just impeccable then...

[BlackST]

Come on, bad language AIN'T good.

[quasimodo]

This thread would be a lot easier to read if the grammar wasn't so completely off the wall.

So... then how many languages do you speak fluently

[Alexii]

As the update - Zebong is probably right. Donor came in i did a swap. Patient just keeps on clicking. Just as somenthing to do i put the patient heads into the donor and they work flawless.... Did a full surface test got a few slow sectors and thats it... So initial diagnostics done been wrong. Looks like its not the heads but the SA that is bad on that patient.

[zebong]

Yes, Hitachi can have that problems the plattes are not good.

[hddguy]

I have seen cases where media is bad, but heads remain good. Specifically with Hitachi 2.5"

[jono-ats]

Check the serial number sticker on the end of the drive., like SB0, SB2, etc.