WD DIY repair - clunking sound

[ChurchSkiz]

Hey all. Had my first mechanical hard drive failure two weeks ago. I've been researching a lot about the failure before trying anything. The drive is a 250GB WD Caviar WD2500KS. I was doing some hard shut downs on my computer and some pulling of power cables from the PSU and when I went to turn my computer back on, I heard 4 loud "clunking" sounds, a pause, 4 more clunking sounds, another long pause, 2 clunking sounds, and then the drive stopped spinning. BIOS would not recognize the device.

I got another drive with the same revision PCB and did a PCB swap (didn't swap the ROM though). The BIOS recognized it, and it didn't make the clunking sound, but the BIOS recognized it as a WD EAGLE drive (or some other weird name), and it wasn't recognized in disk management in Windows or Linux.

Does this mean the pre-amp is damaged? Is it worth trying to swap the ROM before sending off for a few hundred?

[drc]

Is it worth trying to swap the ROM before sending off for a few hundred?

It would be more than a few hundred to swap heads, so can't hurt

(Based on your symptoms I would say you have a good chance)

[ChurchSkiz]

Also, forgot to note that the clunking sound sounds like the arm is hitting the side of the drive. The clinking can be felt on the side of the drive if you hold it. Also, before I did anything I tried freezing it for a night in a ziploc bag and that did nothing.

[Nick_CT]

Freezing it = BAD idea. Pity you did that. The clunking noise you heard was the arm hitting the limiter as it can't read the SA.

If you feel skilled enough you can try a matching PCB and ROM swap. That is, if your PCB has an 8-pin ROM chip at U12. If not then it's a different story.

Remember the risks involved when you go DIY.

[pcimage]

What is it with people freezing drives?

[thatdellguy]

Personally, I prefer double boiling and then spreading low fat cottage cheese over the circuit board.

[ChurchSkiz]

Thanks for the responses.

Yes I realize now freezing is a bad idea. When I first started Googling I read that it worked sometimes, didn't know then what I know now.

Nick, what would cause this arm problem in the hard drive? If it's what your thinking, would swapping u12 theoretically fix it? I have a donor drive that should work, it's 3 weeks older and the PCB matches perfectly. My soldering is not up to par so I would probably take it to an electronics specialist for the swap. I guess I'm just curious what my chances are that it would work.

[pcimage]

If the drive is clicking a few times then spinning down, and staying spun down, then its extremely likely you have a physical issue with the head assembly.

But... Having said that, with the drive not clicking with a new (albeit incompatible) PCB, there is a slim chance that the PCB might be bad, so if you're confident enough to swap the chip at U12 then I would say it's worth a shot.

Last edited by pcimage on September 26th, 2011, 16:51, edited 2 times in total.

[ChurchSkiz]

What is it with people freezing drives?

Google, "hard drive is broken". I thought it was a joke at first but I saw plenty of reputable people saying it's worked on some occassions long enough to get data back. I think MythBusters even did something on it. I was just starting my journey of research on the subject so I figured it was worth a shot.

I also had the mentality that if I was going to be sending it away they could recover anything so I was free to do as I pleased. I'm really glad I read that opening the cover on WD drives misaligns the platters before I went MacGyver on my HD.

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythb ... cp=10&cc=a

[harddrivespecialist]

Before you swap ROM chip you have to make sure your drive has one.

[BlackST]

What is it with people freezing drives?

It's HDD thermodynamics. I explained it some time ago : "if you boil an aquarium you get fish soup, unluckily if you cool down the fish soup you don't get the aquarium again"

Honestly, I don't understand why this myth still survives.

[ici_lemmy]

Honestly, I don't understand why this myth still survives.

Because it has worked on very rare occasion. And when you're not a specialist, you try whatever you can read on Internet...

[harddrivespecialist]

Because it has worked on very rare occasion.

Coincidence is not a very rare occasion.