WD1500ADFD PCB swap / firmware transfer

[krytron]

Hey everyone,

I have the following drive that suddenly died while in use (freeze, then blue screen):

WD1500ADFD-00NLR1
18 JUN 2006
PCB 2060-701384-002 REV A
sticker 2061-701384-800AB XW3A12KASV200035006503

After powering off and restarting, the drive no longer spun up and wasn't recognized by the BIOS. I located a similar drive on ebay:

WD1500ADFD-00NLR1
09 APR 2006
PCB 2060-701384-002 REV A
sticker 2061-701384-890AE XW3A130RW2100063506356

...and swapped the PCB onto the dead drive. The "dead" drive now spins up and is recognized by the BIOS, but isn't accessible in Windows. When I plugged it into a USB dock I can see it in the Device Manager, but not under Disk Management.

There aren't any obvious signs of physical damage to the old PCB, but the fact that it is recognized and spins with the replacement PCB gives me some hope. After reading through these forums, I suspect that I need to do a firmware transfer from the old PCB in order to get it to work, but I'd like to hear what others think. Are these symptoms typical of a case where a firmware transfer will allow me to recover data?

Thanks!!

[poehere]

Move your ROM over to this drive. Might not want to do it yourself in less you are good at solidering on this one. As Franc would say take it to your local TV repair shop they can do it for you. No seriously if you can move the ROM over then you should be fine on this one. Once you do so copy your data off to a new drive. Each ROM holds adaptive info for the drive. If that is all your problem give it a go on this one. If you destroy the ROM well this is another story on this one. You have to be good in solidering to do this job that is all.