Samsung HD103SJ click of death. Options?

[gourdo]

My Samsung HD103SJ 1TB gave up the ghost two weeks ago as my computer came out of sleep. It gave me the dreaded repeating 'click of death' and refused to be recognized by the BIOS. I powered it up using a different SATA port, then tried a different computer. Same result each time.

Then I decided maybe I could do a PCB swap before considering big bucks on recovery. I actually found a place online that had the identical board as was found on my drive: BF41-00278A 02.

The most important stuff on my drive is probably about 12 years worth of digital photos, which I certainly don't want to lose but am probably not willing to spend ~$2000 retrieving. I figured I had little to lose at this point, so I ordered the PCB from China for only a few dollars and swapped it out today. Turns out that with the new board, the drive would spin up without clicks, but was still not recognized by the BIOS.

Then I read about maybe needing a ROM swap. So I got out the heat gun, extracted the old ROM and replaced it on the new PCB.

With the new PCB using original ROM, the clicks came back. I'm not sure if this is a plausible explanation, but logically it seems to me that maybe the original PCB was fine, the disk passed its initialization, only to discover that the heads were messed up and the clicks would start. Perhaps the new PCB didn't get that far because the ROM was wrong, so it just spun up and did nothing else. When I swapped the original ROM onto the new PCB, then the new PCB passed initialization and went on to the clicks. Dunno, but that's what i'm guessing without really knowing for sure.

At this point, I think my DIY trials are over and I hope that I haven't done too much damage to the platters (who knows really).

Assuming that the heads are probably crashed, I called a few professional data recovery places. It's really expensive, but the best quote I received said that their max charge would be $1700 for a clean room data recovery (assuming it works).

Thoughts on my next step? I certainly don't mind paying a few hundred bucks, but $1700 is just too costly in my mind for the lost photos.

[BlackST]

So in a nutshell you ask if a pro between us is willing to do the job for the price you want , I guess 200~300$ ?
Better to store the drive and wait for better times, I'm afraid.

[jono-ats]

If you don't have a reliable diagnosis, then you are shooting in the dark. And there is a chance with any major self-surgery that you can much things up and make it unrecoverable.

FYI, we charge less than 1/2 of your quote. Others charge less too. Shop around . . .

Jon

[gourdo]

$750 I can deal with. My drive will be on its way to the ATL shortly. Thanks.

Incidentally, should I solder the original ROM and PCB back together before sending or leave as is?

[BlackST]

750 is not 2-300 ...

[jono-ats]

PM coming . . .