Samsung Drive Dead (HD301SI)

[IcedEarth27]

Hello guys!
My first post here so please don't be too hard one me

Yesterday I caught some sort of virus on my PC and after i got rid of it i started a full antivirus scan just in case.
After a while I heard a very high noise coming from the HDD for about 3 secs than it stopped spinning, a few sec after that PC shut down and when it tried to reboot it said not boot device found.
My PC was wide open on my desk and the HDD was sitting on top of it. I was like 40-50 cm away from it that's why I witnessed exactly how it happened. Also the whole thing was untouched so there was no shock or smth of this nature at all.
Worth to mention that I've never had any problem with this drive in the 4-5 years that I've used it. No strange noises, no bad sectors, It has never required a disk check and I've always had my OS on it. It wouldn't win any races in the speed department but it was stable and that was enough for me.

The drive doesn't give any sign of life (no clicking buzzing ect.) I carefully opened the cover to see if there was anything wrong with the headers but on first sight they looked fine. After some digging around on the net I came to the conclusion that most likely it is PCBs fault. I made a quick inspections of the components but there was not any visual or burnt smell sign. I noticed that one of 4R7 components (shown on the pic below) had a bit play on it and it didn't seem stay firmly on the board.

My aim here is to retrieve a few gigs out of it (mostly sentimental stuff). I know it is highly unlikely but doesn't hurt to give it a try. My economical condition does not allow for a professional data recovery service (at least for now). Also I live in Albania and there are no such services here even if I wanted to! Trying a foreign service would be a logistical nightmare with even more increase in costs so unfortunately a no no!

I have a digital multimeter and very modest soldering skills (but if advanced soldering skills are needed I believe I can use local shops).

Any ideas, suggestions or help of any kind would be appreciated.

Model: Samsung HD103SI
Board number: BF41-00284A 01 REV.06

Attachments

[northwind]

Opening the drive was a terrible idea, but assuming you just opened and closed it quickly, it stands a few chances.

If the drive doesn't spin up, I would measure the 12V and 5V TVS diodes.

[mmzhr]

Hello guys!
My first post here so please don't be too hard one me

Yesterday I caught some sort of virus on my PC and after i got rid of it i started a full antivirus scan just in case.
After a while I heard a very high noise coming from the HDD for about 3 secs than it stopped spinning, a few sec after that PC shut down and when it tried to reboot it said not boot device found.
My PC was wide open on my desk and the HDD was sitting on top of it. I was like 40-50 cm away from it that's why I witnessed exactly how it happened. Also the whole thing was untouched so there was no shock or smth of this nature at all.
Worth to mention that I've never had any problem with this drive in the 4-5 years that I've used it. No strange noises, no bad sectors, It has never required a disk check and I've always had my OS on it. It wouldn't win any races in the speed department but it was stable and that was enough for me.

The drive doesn't give any sign of life (no clicking buzzing ect.) I carefully opened the cover to see if there was anything wrong with the headers but on first sight they looked fine. After some digging around on the net I came to the conclusion that most likely it is PCBs fault. I made a quick inspections of the components but there was not any visual or burnt smell sign. I noticed that one of 4R7 components (shown on the pic below) had a bit play on it and it didn't seem stay firmly on the board.

My aim here is to retrieve a few gigs out of it (mostly sentimental stuff). I know it is highly unlikely but doesn't hurt to give it a try. My economical condition does not allow for a professional data recovery service (at least for now). Also I live in Albania and there are no such services here even if I wanted to! Trying a foreign service would be a logistical nightmare with even more increase in costs so unfortunately a no no!

I have a digital multimeter and very modest soldering skills (but if advanced soldering skills are needed I believe I can use local shops).

Any ideas, suggestions or help of any kind would be appreciated.

Model: Samsung HD103SI
Board number: BF41-00284A 01 REV.06

hi
maybe rom chip is damaged sometimes if rom is corrupt or damaged hdd dosent spinup
i dont see any 8 pin rom chip on pcb rom is in marvell chip

[fzabkar]

Measure V1, V2, Vneg, +5V and +12V. If any are missing, measure the resistance to ground at that point.

If all are OK, then examine the output from the terminal port.

How to connect a terminal adaptor on a Samsung drive ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=189&p=432

Attachments

TVS_diodes.jpg (112.45 KiB) Viewed 5454 times

[IcedEarth27]

northwind yeah I agree, not the smartest thing I've ever done but yes I opened and closed it quickly.

mmzhr I looked at different versions of pcb's for this drive and and the rom chip was there until Rev. 03 or 04. After that they must have integrated it into the big IC. MCU or the other one, I'm not an expert :p

fzabkar first thank you for taking the time to edit the img and explain what to measure.
TSV diodes were both fine. The fuse was fine too (it was 5V). At V1 and V2 and -5V I was getting nothing although I'm not 100% sure if i did the measurement correctly. Need to refresh a bit my electro fundamental, been a while since my school days. I'll get back to you when I'm sure about my measurements. Sorry for taking a bit long to respond but started a new job last week and I'm still wrapping my head around it. Not being able to find much me time.

[fzabkar]

TSV diodes were both fine. The fuse was fine too (it was 5V). At V1 and V2 and -5V I was getting nothing although I'm not 100% sure if i did the measurement correctly.

V1, V2 and -5V are generated by the motor controller IC, in which case the absence of all 3 voltages would suggest that this IC is dead.

BTW, when you say that "fuse was fine too (it was 5V)", did you measure 5V between the ends of the fuse, or between each side and ground? In any case, you should measure the resistance of the fuse (with power off) -- it should be close to 0 ohms.