Seagate 320 GB Desktop HDD, issue with motor rotation

[padmanabha]

HI,
I have a drive of Seagate 320 GB HDD with Motor rotation issues.

HDD has following symptoms,
1) Checked the patient pcb by changing to working hdd without changing ROM, Donor motor is rotating fine, hence pcb is not faulty.
2) Interchanged matching Donor PCB with ROM Chip, the motor does not rotate either.

Issue arised due to power fluxuation & motherboard burnt down, motherboard of the computer has been replaced, but the hard disk has no detection & motor rotation even after pcb exchange.
Plz find the images of the donor & patient pcb & HDD.

Attachments

Donor PCB 80 GB HDD

Patient PCB 320 GB HDD

Seagate 320 GB Drive

[Madoka]

Greetings !
If you replaced the pcb on the damaged drive and you still can't ear any sound at all on it, of the drive trying to spin, there is a very high probability for the pre-amp inside the drive to be shorted.
Do not power the drive again and send it to a reputable data recovery business in case you need to recover the data out of the drive, because if I'm correct your drive will have to be opened inside a clean room or laminar flow bench to have it's head stack replaced.

[fzabkar]

Does the drive spin up if you isolate the HDA contacts?

If you install either PCB on the drive, what resistance can you measure between ground and pin #1 of the "FDFS" IC to the left of the 1R2 coil? I believe this should be the test point for the negative supply to the preamp. If this resistance is low, then that could explain why the drive doesn't spin.

[padmanabha]

Hi Fzabkar,
Drive does not spin even when HDA Contacts are masked, only motor contacts are given to the drive from both the PCB.
Im getting 9.1 OHM (Donor with its ROM) & 28.5 OHM (Patient with patient's ROM) on the FDFS IC when connected from Ground & 1st pin of IC.

I do have clean room chamber for head replacement, but do not have a spare of the same model. Searching may take some time. Present pcb is of 80 GB Seagate HDD, which i found compatible.

Plz let me know what can be done on solving this issue on the drive..

Thank you for the support

[Madoka]

This is a Seagate with a barracuda type of firmware, I would say a 7200.10 and if so this is NOT a F3 type of drive.
The ROM code is loaded to the drive RAM and checks the pre-amp id. Even if the pre-amp is not shorted and it's just damaged or the contacts to the head stack are insulated, the id is not transmited to the MCU, and you will get a 00 and the drive will stay at F> and will NOT SPIN.
You can use a TTL adaptor to do further diagnostics but on a 7200.10 with the majority of firmware versions you will not get a terminal log/prompt if the contacts are insulated or if the pre-amp is dead. If your drive is a 7200.9 you can check the if the pcb is working with a TTL adaptor.

[Madoka]

Plz let me know what can be done on solving this issue on the drive..

Thank you for the support

Option 1 - Send the drive to a reputable data recovery professional.

Option 2 :

1 - Confirm if the problem is indeed with the pre-amp using a TTL adaptor.

2 - Replace the head stack.

3 - Clone the drive.

4 - Extract the data.

[jono-ats]

The issue could also be mechanical, e.g. 1) heads not at starting position, or 2) bearing seizure, a relatively common failure.

Examination in a clean room environment will rule those possibilities out.

[Madoka]

The issue could also be mechanical, e.g. 1) heads not at starting position, or 2) bearing seizure, a relatively common failure.

Examination in a clean room environment will rule those possibilities out.

If that is the case the drive will produce a terminal output, even if it's a 7200.10.
I would be more inclined for a damaged pre-amp because of the description of the problem done by the op.

If the drive is a 7200.10 and there is no terminal log at all with the known good compatible pcb then the pre-amp is gone.

Also a stuck spindle or head sticktion would produce some sounds when powering on the drive.

[fzabkar]

The issue could also be mechanical, e.g. 1) heads not at starting position, or 2) bearing seizure, a relatively common failure.

The preamp appears to have a resistance of 9 ohms. That means it's essentially shorted. A short circuit exists when there is a path of zero resistance between two points.

Repeating the same measurements with the boards removed from the drive should confirm this beyond any doubt.

[padmanabha]

Hi,
Checked the hard disk in terminal with HDD & without HDD connected to PCB. In both the ways the symptoms & error messages are same as follows,

Preamp ID 00 unsupported
Interface task reset
4096k x 16 SDRAM
(
F>


The Stiction or buzzing noise is not the issue, as there is no noise or symptoms of the same during initial 10 seconds nor motor got Bricked due to physical fall. Heads are in parking position.
It is the Pre-amp of the hdd has gone bad. Is the HSA exchange is only the option for the recovery purpose? Any ways to change resistors or diodes of Heads assembly or any methods to recover using the same HSA?