WD3200BMVU-11A04S0 usb light flashing, makes PC slow

[tslugmo]

Upon plugging the hard drive in, the usb light flashes continuously forever, and the computer tries to recognize it. Eventually it does give the autoplay scan popup, but this takes quite a long time. Sometimes it asks whether I want to format the drive. In running a data recovery program, it sees the drive, but goes extremely slowly sector by sector and won't finish in my lifetime. It seems to find no files. I'm wondering if I order an identical hdd and swap the PCB if this is likely to fix the issue? The drive sounds fine, spins up normally according to my ears.

Thanks in advance.

[jono-ats]

No, another PCB will not fix the problem, and it will not work at all.

[tslugmo]

Thanks for the reply. Can you elaborate on why not? And can you tell from those symptoms what the problem is? Turns out we have an identical drive purchased at the same time.

Thanks

[jono-ats]

First of all, the symptom that you describe does not sound like a PCB problem. I might be wrong, but I'm basing it upon what we often see.

Secondly, each drive is "fine tuned" at the factory and the PCB contains "adaptive" information that is geared to work with the hardware and the firmware written on the platters.

Thirdly, there are many different versions of firmware used in these drives. If the drives were relatively close in manufacture, there is a chance that the same FW version might be used, and there is a CHANCE it might work with the drive -- probably in a degraded fashion, if at all.

Your problem sounds like bad sectors or a failing head. You can't change the spark plugs and hope to fix a transmission problem . . .

[tslugmo]

If you were in my position and you had purchased 2 of these drives at the same time, is there something else you would do given these symptoms? Was hoping having a possibly identical drive might save us.

Thanks.

[jono-ats]

Well, you can always swap the board from the bad drive to the good one. If it works, you'll know that you have compatible firmware versions, and the problem ain't the PCB . . .