Help a new guy please??? WD My Passport WDBAAA3200ABL-00

[ritch50]

Hello guys hope you can help an amateur
I have the above named external 2.5" drive that is 320GB. It sometimes makes a noise, a bit like two tones of beep, not clicking. When it has detected it comes up as 2TB so I cant get the data off it. The drive is under warranty and Western Digital are sending me a replacement and require that I send the faulty one back to them after 30 days (which I thought was pretty good of them).
The PCB is a strange looking one with a built in mini usb connector, no sata etc.
Would swopping the PCB out from the replacement drive give me any chances of getting the data back?
Or is that a no go?
I have a pretty well stocked workshop with Universal programmers and Tsop/sm component removal is no problem at all. It's just data recovery on drives that is all new to me!
Any advice at all would be really really appreciated.
Thanks Ritch50

[ritch50]

Oh yes I forgot, please find a ttached a screen shot I got...

Attachments

[einstein9]

with such case my friend if you are able to take ur files that is OK
but i really doubt it, u MAY take few since clicking noise is 60-80% heads
it is going to die soon or later

and from ur screen shot, sometimes Not enough power to the drive results in those garbage in bios

good luck

[ritch50]

Thanks einstein9 the power thing I can look at, really appreciate that.
It makes sense as it's not clicking but kind of failing to spin up. It came with a single headed cable as I know some use 2x usb headers on one end. I'll connect to the back of the PC instead of the front USBs to try that. I would connect interally to sata but it dosen't have a sata port on the drive.
I suspect it is still going to come up 2x 1TB partitions though...

Ritch50

[fzabkar]

To eliminate any power issues, I would try a USB Y-cable. During spin-up, a typical 2.5" drive requires about 850mA. Afterwards it settles down to around 400mA. A standard USB 2.0 port is current limited to 500mA. Some USB ports are OK with the extra current, while others are not. A USB 3.0 port can supply 900mA.

If you have a Gigabyte motherboard, be aware that some have a "3x USB Power Boost" feature which can be enabled via a driver:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/FreeAgent- ... 742#M13966

That said, the fact that the drive is detected with a 2TB capacity doesn't look good.

[ritch50]

Hi fzabkar, thanks for the reply. This drive uses a newer type mini USB like an android fitting. I'm going to use a powered USB hub to try and eliminate the issue. It is using the proper cable but struggles to spin up properly. It's the data I'm most bothered about, was sondering if swopping the board over from a repacement of the exact same model would do any good or if I'm not going to get anywhere doing that!

ritch50

[fzabkar]

I'm not a data recovery guy, but I trust Einstein's diagnosis. However, if you insist on trying a board swap, then you will need to transfer the 8-pin serial flash memory chip at U12, or its contents, from patient to donor. This chip contains unique, drive specific "adaptive" information. The other 8-pin EEPROM is associated with the Initio INIC-1607E bridge IC. I don't believe it needs to be transferred, but I'm not certain.

[ritch50]

Hi fjabkar really appreciate the reply. I can easy move any sm components so this is good news to me. As an amateur I thought that the drive firmware or similar was stored on one of these ics. I was a little concerned that if I transfer the ic over I would be copying over the 2tb reporting fault, if you know what I mean.
I'll give it a go though, cheers!
ritch50