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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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WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 4th, 2017, 9:41

Hello.
I have a WD20EARS-00MVWB0 drive, 2 years ago it was damaged after a shorcut in power source. The PCB has no signs of damage, but drive does not detect or spin.
Now I tried to repair it. There was no important data on this drive. I found a replacement PCB in online store and bought it. Mine was 2060-771698-002 Rev P1, and I received 2060-771698-002 Rev A. Lot description and other online sources told that revP1 and revA are compatible.
So I transferred ROM chip and replaced PCB (and cleaned contacts by the way).
Now drive spins up, but then begins to repeatingly click for 3-4 seconds. Then it appears in device manager as WD20EARS, but in drive management I see it as "uninitialized". "Initialize" command results in "i/o error" popup.
Other disk management programs either do not see it, or report "invalid geometry" or zero size.
Question is:
- Is it a sign that something is wrong with HDD itself or ROM, and there's no point of fixing it?
- or could it be incompatibility of PCB (rev P2 and rev A)?

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 4th, 2017, 13:12

Could you show pcb's photos?

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 4th, 2017, 15:15

Here they are.
IMG_20170104_220852.jpg
old PCB

IMG_20170104_220903.jpg
new PCB

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 4th, 2017, 23:09

HDD can be keep spin with new PCB? PCB compatible

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 5th, 2017, 7:57

No, it does not spin after detection.

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 5th, 2017, 15:17

i got same issue.
i try 3 pcb but it's useless.

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 6th, 2017, 9:00

Any chance the original board only had a damaged TVS (D3, shorted), or 0R link (R67, higher ohms) and nothing else wrong?

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 6th, 2017, 11:40

I checked D3, R67 and R64 on original PCB with a multimeter. R67 and R64 about 0-1ohm (cheap multimeter cannot measure better), D3 works as diode.

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 6th, 2017, 14:51

I tested D3, R67 and R64 with multimeter. Resistors are 0-1ohms (multimeter cannot measure better), D3 works as diode.

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 7th, 2017, 9:21

Sulako wrote:I tested D3, R67 and R64 with multimeter. Resistors are 0-1ohms (multimeter cannot measure better), D3 works as diode.

What about the tvs located above r64? You need to test that one as well.

Re: WD20EARS - PCB swap did not help

January 7th, 2017, 10:49

One above R64 also works as diode, conducts in one direction and does not conduct in opposite. I use diode test mode on multimeter.
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