WD2500JS No Power...PCB Swap?

[ken_todd]

I have a Western Digital Caviar WD2500JS from August 2006 that is no longer recognized by my computer. I tried mounting it using an external Thermaltake docking station but it does not spin or make any noise and is not recognized by WD Data Lifeguard or Apple's Disk Utility. The drive is from an original Mac Pro 1,1. I obtained another WD2500JS with the same circuit board but it is 1 month newer and has a different DCM code. I understand that if my problem is the PCB, it will be necessary to transfer the ROM or the data on the ROM to the replacement circuit board.

I am seeking an opinion as to whether my investment in the ROM adaptation service would have a reasonable chance of success. I tried mounting the replacement drive but it only spun up, clicked 3 times, and turned off. When I did a simple swap of the PCBs, the drives swapped symptoms.

While not expecting the new PCB to make the original drive work, the fact that the drive did spin at all gives me hope that a ROM adaptation would bring my original drive to life. I was hoping that the new PCB would allow the drive to mount and, perhaps, not give valid volume or partition data. The fact that the drive spun at all was encouraging. Was it false encouragement?

I was referred to this forum by Donor Drives. I appreciate any feedback.

[pcimage]

Are there any visibly burned components on the "dead" PCB?

[ken_todd]

There are no visible burn marks or component damage.

[drHDD]

Is any component overheating?

[fzabkar]

Post a detailed photo of your PCB and I'll help you make some voltage measurements. If there is a problem, then this may help the pros to decide whether the drive is likely to have an internal fault.

BTW, is it possible that your drive is configured to Power Up In Standby (PUIS)? Is there a PM2 jumper?

[ken_todd]

Post a detailed photo of your PCB and I'll help you make some voltage measurements. If there is a problem, then this may help the pros to decide whether the drive is likely to have an internal fault.

BTW, is it possible that your drive is configured to Power Up In Standby (PUIS)? Is there a PM2 jumper?

Thanks for the offer but I don't have any way to test voltage and I can't access the board while mounted in my external drive bay.

[ken_todd]

I tried mounting the replacement drive but it only spun up, clicked 3 times, and turned off. When I did a simple swap of the PCBs, the drives swapped symptoms.

I would say that if the new PCB is working as it should (working fine on the donor drive) and if the PCB is compatible then the drive shouldn't just click and stop, it should stay spinning and shouldn't produce abnormal clicking.

This is because even with wrong adaptives on ROM and even with wrong overlay on the platter SA that wouldn't match ROM version the drive would still need to spin fine to read the SA (and overlay) and access to the copy of adaptives on SA (platter).

If the drive just click and stop the heads/pre-amp are toasted.

I fear the worst. The drive has been used quite a bit over the last 10 years and the end user failed to include the volume in his Time Machine preferences. It stopped working without symptoms...no smoke or strange sounds...just didn't spin up and stopped showing in the system configuration. Fortunately the end user had recently updated to a new OS and was booting from a newer, larger drive. Inexperience didn't advise him to transfer data from the original drive to a newer volume when he upgraded his OS.

I wouldn't say the donor PCB is working as it should since the donor drive clicks and powers down. The fact that the original drive spins up at all with the new PCB gave me some hope that another donor PCB that has been tested and had the ROM adapted would allow me a short window to recover the data. I bought the donor bag cheap at it was shipped in a bubble bag...the seller obviously had no idea how to ship a drive.

[ken_todd]

Is any component overheating?

There's no indication of overheating and the board seems cool to the touch although I don't know how much power is coursing through the circuits when the drive doesn't spin up or clicks and shuts down with the donor PCB/

[ken_todd]

Are there any visibly burned components on the "dead" PCB?

There are no visible burn marks or component damage.