Can a preamp damage a PCB? strange case

[avecvous9]

Hello everybody,
I have a Hitachi 250go that stopped spinning
First things I thought it was a pcb problem. You can check what I did from here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30882
Now, I bought a donor; same model and the same 2first lines on the pcb sticker.
First I check the donor=> the donor spin, recognized in the bios and accessible in the windows.
Then I moves the PCB from the donor to my hard drive (without changing the Nvram). My HDD spin for a moment and stopped.
After that, I tried to move back the donor's PCB to its original HDA. I am dissapointed, now even the donor is not spining.
Eventhough I know it is not an NVRAM problem, I tried to swap the NVRAM and I rechecked but nothing happened.
I can't understand what is happening. Apparently it is a preamp problem but the drive do spin when I use another PCB from another closely model HDT722520DLAT80.
What do you suggest?.
Best regards.

[data-medics]

I have had a WD drive before that seemed to keep killing PCBs for no explainable reason. Never seen this on a Hitachi, but I suppose it's possible there could be a short in the heads or even a motor that's drawing too much current causing the PCB to fail. Out of curiosity did you try isolating the preamp contacts to see if just the motor will spin up? Might help to isolate where the problem is (motor or heads).

[avecvous9]

Thanks for the immediate response data-medics
Even in isolation mode the drive does not spin (I am using my original PCB and the donor PCB -maybe they are damaged-) .
My question is, if there is a short-circuit in the motor or in the Preamp, why the HDD spin with another PCB from a close model without damaging it?

[fzabkar]

@avecvous9, I'm not a data recovery professional, but I believe some Hitachi drives will reprogram the NVRAM under some conditions, rendering the donor PCB nonfunctional on the donor drive.

The following article has some explanatory information, but it doesn't talk about your specific case:
http://tierradatarecovery.co.uk/should- ... hard-drive

[avecvous9]

Thanks fzabkar,
update: I tried to swap the PCB again with closer model. My HDA killed this one too.
Conclusion: The preamp is killing the pcbs.
Why it did not kill the first swapped pcb (from closer model)?
I guess the pcbs where similar but not identical. Therefore, the short-circuit in the preamp did not affect the same components in the circuit.
It is a strange case "I admit", I would consider my self in this specific case very unlucky.