WD Board Swap WD2500JS Questions

[otak]

New here but have been reading a lot and I have a few questions.

I have a WD2500JS drive that won't spin up, the main chip on the board is a burnt hole in it seems to be pretty common in these models. (pictures of drives attached)

I do have other similar drives but not -exact- the closest one I have was manufactured later but Model number, circuit board revision, first part of sticker on board line up.

After swapping that board to the non working drive it spins up and sounds normal but BIOS doesn't recognize it properly only 8GB with no/incorrect model.

From what I have read that it most likely needs the BIOS chip from the original board to the donor board in order to work. I don't have immediate access to a hot air station, nor have I done much with one before. I have soldered and am comfortable with that so I think it's doable but not sure without the hot work station.

Is swapping the BIOS chips the only option? Is there a way to clone the chip from the original to the donor board with out a special programmer?

Thanks for all your help in advanced.

Attachments

Donor Drive back

Donor Drive Front

Bad Drive Back

Bad Drive front

[mr_spokk]

Hi, there are 3 ways normally.
1, Read the chip out with Pc3000 or similar.
2, Solder the chip off and solder it onto the healthy board.
3, use a programmer and a clip on set to read the info out.

Attachments

[otak]

Thanks for the info.

I was able to find someone to swap the BIOS chip on to the donor board. It worked PERFECTLY and was able to get data off. For any future looking it looks like these drive defiantly require the bios chip to be swapped or programed/cloned.

Thanks for the help.