Help! WD1600BEVT after overheating

[GenPol]

HDD Data
MDL: WD1600BEVT-00ZCT0
DCM: HACT2BNB
PCB: 2060-701499-005 REV P1
DATE: 10 AUG 2009
Product of Thailand

Prehistory
The HDD was used (irony of faith) as a backup USB-storage. The enclosure catched a fire after explosion of a nearly staying air-condition and was totally wrecked. After that the HDD was extracted and tested. Actually it doesn’t spin up and isn’t BIOS recognized.

Checked & Measured
Enclosure USB-Bridge chip: Initio INIC-1608L
MCU: Marvell 88i6745N-TFJ1
Motor Driver: SMOOTH L7206 1.2
SDRAM: EtronTech EM638165TS-6G
All of chips are normally warm after power-on.
Motor windings have the same resistance ca. 2.1 Ohm, current sensors are all OK. There no signals on the motor windings after power-on.
HDD doesn’t spin up even with the isolated J1 connection
HDD does spin up with the similar (not same!) working PCB and isolated J1 connection, rotates normally without any clicks ca. 10s and then stops.
PCB hasn’t any visible and thermo-damages. The mat between PCB and HDA isn’t decolorized.
PCB does generate +7,5V, +3.3V, +1.2V, -3.3V.

Following my logic I plan to replace the SMOOTH chip.
Any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated.

Kindly
GP

[Vulcan]

@GenPol,

I don't have that drive for comparison, but if I was in your situation, here are a couple of comments - consider them or ignore them, as you wish

PCB does generate +7,5V, +3.3V, +1.2V, -3.3V.

a) I'm surprised at there being a +7.5V voltage anywhere on a drive PCB, but you haven't said where it is being generated, or what it is used for.

b) Have you checked that the +12V and +5V rails are within tolerance?

Following my logic I plan to replace the SMOOTH chip.

c) You haven't said why you plan to do that. I can guess about one possible reason some people might do that (which is based on a wrong guess), but I don't know if that applies to your plan. It may be more successful / efficient to use a correct replacement PCB, although if there is no extrnal adaptives chip, you then have the challenge of transferring that data (which has been discussed here many times before).

Those are 3 points which I would consider, if you are accepting the risks of doing your own work on the drive.

[GenPol]

@Vulcan Thanks for replay

a) I'm surprised at there being a +7.5V voltage anywhere on a drive PCB, but you haven't said where it is being generated, or what it is used for.

I don't know why the board have to generate it and haven't the corresponding DS to explain this. Anyway the SMOOTH chip does generate it. There are similar points not only on WD PCBs, but also on Seagate and Maxtor.

b) Have you checked that the +12V and +5V rails are within tolerance?

Laptop HDDs don't use +12V, +5V is OK.

c) You haven't said why you plan to do that.

You are right, I wasn’t enough consequent in my explanation, having something in underground. In fact I’m waiting for the ordered JTAG-emulator and then intend to read/copy the ROM content. Only succeeding this I will replace the SMOOTH chip.

Kindly
GP

[Vulcan]

Laptop HDDs don't use +12V

Yes, of course - I mis-remembered the drive model number

I’m waiting for the ordered JTAG-emulator and then intend to read/copy the ROM content.

Have fun!

[fzabkar]

Laptop HDDs don't use +12V ...

True.

However, just FYI, here are 2.5" drives that require 12V:
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datashe ... tion_2.pdf

[fzabkar]

@Vulcan Thanks for replay

a) I'm surprised at there being a +7.5V voltage anywhere on a drive PCB, but you haven't said where it is being generated, or what it is used for.

I don't know why the board have to generate it and haven't the corresponding DS to explain this. Anyway the SMOOTH chip does generate it. There are similar points not only on WD PCBs, but also on Seagate and Maxtor.

That could be a "boost" voltage that is generated by a charge pump. According to the following datasheet, "boosted gate drive for the high side drivers [in the VCM H-bridge] is provided by the charge pump circuitry, with the boosted voltage at the VCP pin".

In the case of the L7250, the voltage is boosted from +12V to +18.5. If the same 50% increase were to be applied in a 5V application, then one could expect that Vboost would be 7.5V.

L7250, SMOOTH, spindle motor + VCM controller, ST Microelectronics:
http://wandrew.regruppa.ru/PCInfo/TechDoc/L7250(Smooth).pdf
http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datashe ... Xyuswx.pdf

[BlackST]

In fact I’m waiting for the ordered JTAG-emulator and then intend to read/copy the ROM content. Only succeeding this I will replace the SMOOTH chip.

Sorry for ruining the day but you don't know if ROM content do actually still exist and most of all is correct.... and why the need / waste € on a JTAG emulator ( ??? ) ?

[fzabkar]

The board is behaving as if the Marvell 88i6745N-TFJ1 MCU is brain dead.

AISI, a potentially cheaper solution may be to install the new PCB and regenerate the original flash memory contents from the System Area on the platters (assuming there is no physical flash memory IC at U12).

A tool such as WDR-UDMA (~US$200) should be able to do this for you:
http://www.chinahdd.cn/List.asp?C-1-9.html

"The new upgrade for ROYL drives; it can allow you to regenerate the corrupted ROM information."

Alternatively, if you have plenty of time and money, then you could buy Salvation Data's HD Doctor for WD. It costs around US$600, but you could resell it for $300 afterwards.

I'm not a data recovery professional, but here are two articles that appear to illustrate the required procedure.

Case Study on WD ROYL Drive Using WD Utility (regenerating ROM data)
http://www.salvationdata.com/blog/data- ... y-tools02/

Fix Identification Problem caused by Corruption of ATA Overlay module or ROM content (ROYL):
http://www.salvationdata.com/blog/fix-i ... m-content/

A potentially far cheaper alternative (US$50) is AFF Repair Station. You may like to contact the author and ask if this online utility will do what you need, ie regenerate the ROM contents from the relevant SA module (#109 ???) on the platters.

http://hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/