WD7500AAVS Repair / Possible PCB replacement

[lloyd]

Hi,

I have a customer that dropped a WD portable hard drive while it was on. The hard drive spins up but it's not detectable by an USB external case or by the BIOS. I acquired an identical drive with all of the same drive information, WWN, Date, DCM, LBA, PCB board version. When I swapped the PCB the host drive spins up, gets identified by the OS via USB, but doesn't identify the drive size properly. Oddly enough if I try the "host" PCB on the "donor" drive it also spins up, gets identified, but also shows the improper drive size. I was expecting it to not get recognized as this was the result with the original host drive and host PCB. This tells me there must be a chip on the PCB that stores the drive parameters. Can someone confirm this or steer me in the right direction.

Please see the attached files.

I've done a PCB swap before with a 1TB Seagate drive by swapping an IC chip from one to another and it worked. I just don't know if I need to do the same with this drive. If so, which chip?

Thanks,
Lloyd

Attachments

donor pcb 2

donor pcb 1

host pcb 2

host pcb 1

host drive

[harddrivespecialist]

Problem is not PCB. Your drive can not read Service Area, which is stored on a platters inside that drive.
I would recommend to take it to data recovery professional before problem becomes bigger, specially if the drive was dropped.

[loki]

Hi,

I have a customer that dropped a WD portable hard drive while it was on. The hard drive spins up but it's not detectable by an USB external case or by the BIOS.

As it was dropped while on it will most likely have damaged heads & probably some platter damage.
Sorry to say but this is not a DIY fix as you would need a cleanroom, specialist tools & lots of experience swapping heads etc.

I've done a PCB swap before with a 1TB Seagate drive by swapping an IC chip from one to another and it worked. I just don't know if I need to do the same with this drive. If so, which chip?

Just for info: The U12 is empty which means that the adaptive information is embedded in the U5 chip (the one with the big M on it)


Loki

[lloyd]

Loki... Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated.

Lloyd