WD 320GB Drive Failure Questions

[patlaw]

My WD3200 (WD3200JB - 00KFA0; SN WCAMR2450698; DCM HSBACAJCA; 2061-70314-A00 AJ) drive failed instantaneously with no warning (SMART or otherwise.) When I boot, the drive does not show up in the BIOS. After a few seconds, the clicks twice, waits about 10 seconds, clicks twice, waits about seconds, and clicks once. If the drive remains powered, it does not make any additional noises.

While clicking noises are typically indicative of mechanical problems, I'm confused by the drive also not showing up in the BIOS. There are no visible indications of problems on the circuit board except that the contacts on the DIP header were very corroded. They're clean now, but the drive still is not accessible.

Based on this description, is it worth trying to find a new board for the drive? If there are mechanical problems, a new board will not help.

The data on the drive are absolutely not worth spending a lot of money to recover. However, if there is a chance that a new board will fix it, it would be worth a try.

[patlaw]

No one?

[MadMex]

While clicking noises are typically indicative of mechanical problems, I'm confused by the drive also not showing up in the BIOS. There are no visible indications of problems on the circuit board except that the contacts on the DIP header were very corroded. They're clean now, but the drive still is not accessible.

Clicking noises are not typically indicative of mechanical problems. Clicking and not being recognized by the BIOS is indicative that your drive is unable to properly complete it's initialization and access it's Administrative Area where it keeps information like the model and other data that you can't read/see/access without specialized hardware.

You were on the right track cleaning the contacts, sometimes (rarely) this does it... it was worth a shot right?

You won't always see a clearly blown up IC on the circuit board, but it can still be damaged. Could it be something inside the drive? Sure! the pre-amp chip could be blown, you could have had a head fly off the arm assembly.

You may want to do some searching in these forums for your drive model. The recovery has been pretty well documented here.
please-help-identify-fried-pcb-wd3200jb-00kfa0-any-comment-t8137.html

Oh, and don't be confused. Just because you post and don't get an answer, doesn't mean no one knows how to help you. It's just that attitude won't get you very far on these boards, and I say that in the most instructional way possible.

[patlaw]

Clicking noises are not typically indicative of mechanical problems. Clicking and not being recognized by the BIOS is indicative that your drive is unable to properly complete it's initialization and access it's Administrative Area where it keeps information like the model and other data that you can't read/see/access without specialized hardware.

That's interesting, and it's good information.

You were on the right track cleaning the contacts, sometimes (rarely) this does it... it was worth a shot right?

They were definitely corroded.

You won't always see a clearly blown up IC on the circuit board, but it can still be damaged. Could it be something inside the drive? Sure! the pre-amp chip could be blown, you could have had a head fly off the arm assembly.

Could either of these failures cause the drive not to show up in the BIOS?

You may want to do some searching in these forums for your drive model. The recovery has been pretty well documented here.
please-help-identify-fried-pcb-wd3200jb-00kfa0-any-comment-t8137.html

Thanks for that link. I read it all. My board LOOKS fine. If I can find another board, it's worth swapping. I have a friend with an SMD rework station. Swapping the ROM would be easy. I'm still confused over how many of the numbers or digits of the donor board have to match.

Thanks for the help. It would be great to get this drive to come back alive. Thankfully it's not critical, so it's worth experimenting if I can find a donor board for a reasonable price.

On a side note, I have a box of old, defective drives that may have good boards. I don't really want them, and they may be too old to help anyone, Where's the best place to offer them up? eBay? Unfortunately, I have no way to test them. Obviously some of them are bad, but some are probably good.

[MadMex]

Ebay or the for sale forum here is probably the best place for that. People sell drives "for parts" on ebay all the time, just be mindful of the fact that once you release your drives into the wild, there is no telling where they will end up and if they will end up in the hands of nefarious individuals who may try to look for personally identifiable information to steal your identity. Just a thought....

In the thread I referenced in my previous post, Mr. Spokk mentioned the PCB details:

Hi there,
The only thing you need to match is: "2060-701314-002"...those boards are quite common on other models also.
And then desolder the U12 ROM chip from your burnt Pcb, and resolder it to the new one.

Regards

Bosse

So you should be good there...

[patlaw]

Super. Thanks for the help.

Regarding the drives, I would only ship the boards, not the platters. Maybe I'll use some of them to try to learn more about data recovery. The only board swap that I ever did didn't work. At the time, I had not seen the technique of swapping the ROM. Of course, it makes a lot of sense.

[patlaw]

My drive has the number 2061-701314-A00 on a sticker on the IDE header. Is this number the one I should use to find a donor board?

[fzabkar]

This supplier offers a PCB, including firmware transfer, for US$70:
http://www.hdd-parts.com/10021173.html