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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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Dead HDD (HGST Z5K500-320)

August 11th, 2020, 18:54

Hi everybody,

I ended up being in the possession of a dead HDD. The PCB had contact with water and won't turn on. There was a little bit of what looked like corrosion on the PCB but I was able to wipe it off easily and nothing looks burnt.

It's a 320 GB 5400 rpm 2,5" HGST drive, the model seems to be Z5K500-320 but it also says HTS545032A7E380 on the label. The PCB is 0J24297 or OJ24297.

So far, I tried looking for and checking fuses and TVS diodes but as my luck would have it, there are no indicators on the PCB and I can't find a schematic anywhere.
This is the part of the drive that had water contact before cleaning:

IMG_0683-1.jpg
IMG_0683-1.jpg (97.53 KiB) Viewed 7603 times


This is almost exactly on the other side, where something resides that looks like a diode (red square):

IMG_0684-1.jpg


This one seems to be ok, though. If I'm not mistaken, there should be a second TVS diode but I just can't make it out.

Would be awesome if anybody could maybe try to help me out. :)

Thanks in advance!

Re: Dead HDD (HGST Z5K500-320)

August 12th, 2020, 8:29

Hello,
if data is important: i would recommend contacting a pro, since the water might have entered the HDA, which would cause a disaster as soon as you sort out the PCB problem and power the drive up.
If data is not important: check those diodes (red square and the other one near Kreml :) ), also check the fuse SE from Red Square.
Vias might be corroded and broken, so there's a chance the PCB itself is gone too. You can buy a replacement pcb and move the rom chip, but is it worth to save such drive?

pepe

Re: Dead HDD (HGST Z5K500-320)

August 12th, 2020, 14:58

It's a 2.5" model, so normally there is only one supply voltage (5V) and therefore only one TVS diode (6.2V in your case). Check the small fuse marked "2" or "Z" or "N".

Re: Dead HDD (HGST Z5K500-320)

August 13th, 2020, 3:46

Thanks a lot for getting back to me, you guys are great!

Luckily, the data isn't that important. There is a backup from a few days ago, so the data loss is minor. Unfortunately, the backups failed a few days before the drive got knocked out and as usual, nobody followed up on the error messages they received. It is used in a POS terminal, so the data is important, but a few days shouldn't matter too much.

I did check the fuses and the diode, all seems well. So it's definitely something else that died during the process. I guess a board swap is really the only thing that comes to mind.

Again, I really appreciate the help, y'all have a great day! :D

Re: Dead HDD (HGST Z5K500-320)

August 13th, 2020, 16:01

Keep in mind that you need to swap the rom chip along with the PCB...

pepe
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