Fujitsu 2.5" MJA2320BH - got donor with different FW

[backstep]

Hello guys,

I've got this external 2.5" apacer drive which is busted (contains Fujitsu MJA2320BH) - it's belongs to my friend and she has a lot of otherwise unobtainable data on it :/

I ordered a very similar drive on eBay - everything is exactly the same apart from the firmware - see picture below.

I'm a newbie and I wanted help on how do I read the FW of the donor original drive to put it into donor? Normally I'd swap a flash but there's nothing like it here.

I've got no special tools - some recommendation on fixing this particular issue are highly appreciated.

Thanks!
Lukas

Disk on the left is the busted one, the one on the right is the donor (of eBay).

[backstep]

Oh I forgot to mentioned, the busted disk spins normally but does not get detected at all, when I swap the PCB it spins too, and gets partly detected (in Linux):

Code:

[742570.837712] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] READ CAPACITY failed
[742570.837715] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd]  Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[742570.837723] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense not available.
[742570.837728] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[742570.837730] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[742570.837734] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Asking for cache data failed
[742570.837800] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[742570.838984] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] READ CAPACITY failed
[742570.838988] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd]  Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[742570.838991] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense not available.
[742570.839003] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Asking for cache data failed
[742570.839091] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[742570.839169] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk


[chinopk]

At this point and assuming that you already opened the drive .... I would say the chances of getting the data back are low.

If you really need the data just send the drive to a data recovery firm.

This is not a DIY case. You can't fix it by yourself without very expensive tools and knowledge.

+1

NOT DIY

[backstep]

I haven't opened the drive (was just looking for the screw to open it + notice that's on the donor drive, not the faulty one).

I was trying to get more info on how to do this or opinions on what might be wrong, I'm not exactly a home DYI user, I've done a lot of SW & HW hacking and I honestly think I'm more than capable but this is a new area so I wanted to ask the pros first.

So I appreciate your concern for the data but I'd still like to get your opinions / recommendations on how to proceed with this - I want to learn something new - I may just turn this to the professional company as learning on real stuff isn't exactly smart but I want to know what should be done anyway.

If somebody would take a second to tell me how a pro would approach this I'd more than appreciate this.