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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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my HDD dead suddenly

March 21st, 2013, 1:58

I bought a Seagate Goflex HDD a few months back. It worked fine till yesterday. The HDD is not spinning up now. It was happened when I was copying some files to that drive from my PC but suddenly stopped. Now, sound or vibration can be felt from it. This is the first time an error occurred with this disk. So I think there is a hope with the PCB replacement. Or do I need to send my HDD for professionals for repairing?

I searched for the relevant PCB model but didn't find anything. I've removed the cover of the HDD and found the following details on it.

Seagate Goflex 500 GB (about 350+ GB used, NTFS formatted)

On top side:
WWN: 5000C50049569371
SN: 5VES24MN
PN: 9HH134-567
FW: 0003BSM1

On bottom side (on PCB):
100656263 D N23870WJ

Kindly help me to find out the PCB suited for my HDD to purchase it in India. Because it contains work files and I'm also using it to store the photographs of my friend (because he doesn't have a computer or can afford a HDD at present and this is most important than any other data in this disk).

Eagerly waiting for a fast solution.

(I also want to know whether I've ruined the warranty because I removed the case but didn't unscrewed or opened any components on the disk)

Re: my HDD dead suddenly

March 21st, 2013, 3:18

My first thoughts are not PCB considering you say this is vibrating. You can feel it vibrate. From sounds can be heads stuck to platter or spindle motor stuck. Hard to say now on this one and hard to guess on this one. But to swap out the PCB will not help you from what you have said. If you want back data you should seek a professional in your area to look at this drive. Give you a quote on repairs becasue he will be the only one that can determine the exact problem. Just guessing on here is hard to do without seeing the drive. Do you happen to hear any other noise if you put your ear to the drive. Such as clicking or churping noise. This would make it easier to understand if you have heads or spindle motor issues. But as longs as you get power and it is vibrating my thoughts are not on the PCB and you will waste money buying one.

Re: my HDD dead suddenly

March 21st, 2013, 3:41

poehere wrote:My first thoughts are not PCB considering you say this is vibrating. You can feel it vibrate. From sounds can be heads stuck to platter or spindle motor stuck. Hard to say now on this one and hard to guess on this one. But to swap out the PCB will not help you from what you have said. If you want back data you should seek a professional in your area to look at this drive. Give you a quote on repairs becasue he will be the only one that can determine the exact problem. Just guessing on here is hard to do without seeing the drive. Do you happen to hear any other noise if you put your ear to the drive. Such as clicking or churping noise. This would make it easier to understand if you have heads or spindle motor issues. But as longs as you get power and it is vibrating my thoughts are not on the PCB and you will waste money buying one.


Thank you for your fast reply but I'm really really sorry that I gave incorrect details with the problem. Actually I can't hear any sound or didn't feel any vibration from the disk. (upon re-edit and detailing of the post, "No sound or vibration can be felt from it." was turned to "Now, sound or vibration can be felt from it.")

The HDD is not responding in any manner.

Can you please help me now?
Sorry again.

Re: my HDD dead suddenly

March 21st, 2013, 12:49

niyon wrote:
poehere wrote:My first thoughts are not PCB considering you say this is vibrating. You can feel it vibrate. From sounds can be heads stuck to platter or spindle motor stuck. Hard to say now on this one and hard to guess on this one. But to swap out the PCB will not help you from what you have said. If you want back data you should seek a professional in your area to look at this drive. Give you a quote on repairs becasue he will be the only one that can determine the exact problem. Just guessing on here is hard to do without seeing the drive. Do you happen to hear any other noise if you put your ear to the drive. Such as clicking or churping noise. This would make it easier to understand if you have heads or spindle motor issues. But as longs as you get power and it is vibrating my thoughts are not on the PCB and you will waste money buying one.


Thank you for your fast reply but I'm really really sorry that I gave incorrect details with the problem. Actually I can't hear any sound or didn't feel any vibration from the disk. (upon re-edit and detailing of the post, "No sound or vibration can be felt from it." was turned to "Now, sound or vibration can be felt from it.")

The HDD is not responding in any manner.

Can you please help me now?
Sorry again.


Well that is another story. Your drive is not spinning, no noise, and no vibration. Yes this could be PCB or it could be PCB and pre-amp.

Warrenty: If this was in external enclosure and removed no I do not think your warrenty will be voided. But if you open the HDD yes your warrently will be voided.

PCB swap - you can try this one if you wish. But beware if there is problem in pre-amp you will burn up another PCB right away. A simple PCB swap will not work there is adaptive on the board that have to be moved. What you can try if you want to spend the money on a new PCB board. Buy the board, put it on, power it on with your own risk because it can burn too. Then see if it spins. If it continues to spin them you need soildering skills to do the rest. If it burn then you know you have problems in the pre-amp of your head and this one is beyond you to fix. If you fix this with a DR company I have heard before that sometime they will accept it back for warrenty. Do not quote me saying this one is true. Might want to check it out before proceeding on with what ever you are thinking of doing.

Re: my HDD dead suddenly

March 25th, 2013, 2:25

Assuming your drive is port powered, I would check the USB connector. Many users are reporting physical connection problems.

In any case, if it is a PCB problem, it is unlikely to be the result of an overvoltage. I've seen a lot of overvoltage cases in the forums, but none via USB. Therefore I can't see how the preamp would be vulnerable. But I'm not a DR professional ...

If you would like to check the PCB, and if you have a multimeter, I can help you with various test points.

BTW, have you tried connecting the drive directly to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard? This will eliminate the enclosure as a problem.
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