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
December 31st, 2021, 13:04
Hello this is my 1st post, happy New Year to you all. Due to poor quality soldering joints the Micro B connector on the adapter connected to the sata drive completely snapped off. I attempted to resolder the Micro B connector back on and plugged the drive back into the USB connector on the laptop, result no sign of drive life. I Checked my soldered repair under a higher magnification and noticed the solder had unfortunately flowed touching other pins. (Could this have damaged the PCB and which board components may have been damaged)? The 2.5 Sata drive is a Samsung 100UI-01 the PCB fitted to the drive has the S/No MT2_S3M.REV-01 After a bit of background research I carefully removed the TVS diode, result no spin! I would appreciate advice regarding what to check next, note my background is not electrical and lol I'm ashamed to admit I don't own a multimeter, though I can certainly get one. Photo of PCB attached.
- Attachments
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- PCB S/No MT2_S3M_REV.01
December 31st, 2021, 18:00
No spin on these is not always a PCB problem they also have stiction issues, especially if you've had power interruptions. Can you hear of feel anything when initially powering the device. No multimeter is going to make diagnosis almost impossible. If you get hold of one we can at least check the coils for voltages, I wouldn't have clipped that diode blindly either. I don't have a have a rev1 board here but I'd found a rev2 on an old 320GB.
December 31st, 2021, 18:12
Can you connect the drive to a SATA port in a desktop computer?
December 31st, 2021, 18:47
Hi thanks for your replies, Lardman no movement of the drive can be detected at all when connecting the drive via USB to Sata on my laptop. In windows 10 I got the following.
Generic HDD USB device
Status No Media
Partition style MBR
Capacity 0 Mb
Unallocated space 0 Mb
Reserved space 0 Mb
USB HDD Device Properties
Migration Rank
0xF000C000000F130
Present False
Status 0xC0000719
Was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match.
January 1st, 2022, 3:34
fzabkar suggested a direct connection, if you have a desktop available and you can do that it will rule out a few other things too, but I assume you have at least tried using a known working usb -> Sata cable, if not that's the first and cheapest thing to try.
You've going to get nothing showing software wise until the hardware side is sorted, and you're going to need a meter to check that. Anything cheap will do even the 9gbp one at screwfix but something with a continuity buzzer is better.
January 1st, 2022, 7:18
Apologies please see my next post
Last edited by
EDShed45 on January 1st, 2022, 7:29, edited 1 time in total.
January 1st, 2022, 7:25
Lardman thank you for your reply, unfortunately I don't have a PC for direct connection to follow fzabkars advice. I have a 2nd laptop I could use. I may not have mentioned the HDD is 2.5 Inch. I have two working USB to Sata devices tested working on another drive both resulted in no sign of life on Samsung HDD. I will purchase a meter also with continuity function for further investigation.
January 12th, 2022, 15:05
can you upload a picture of the Micro B connector on the adapter so we can figure out what damage could be done, high quality picture on both sides... I'm not sure how a short of the bridge board can cause the drive to be damage as the damage would be limited to the bridge board itself, unless something else happened.
March 6th, 2022, 10:54
You didn't plug it with soldering like that did you ?
I've not checked to see if I have one of those PCB's in but check resistance to ground (a screw hole) from the v5 rail on the connector and the first inductor past it (there looks to be a diode missing there) and from the live side of the coils below the motor connector. I'll have a look for a pcb later if I'd got one in I'll get some comparison readings for you.
March 6th, 2022, 13:45
Measure the voltages at V1, V2, +5V and +5V (filtered). Use a screw hole as your ground reference (black probe of multimeter).
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- 5V.jpg (77.7 KiB) Viewed 9995 times
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- Vcore_Vio.jpg (129.52 KiB) Viewed 9995 times
March 7th, 2022, 16:48
Thank you Lardman and Fzabkar for your helpful replies I'm ashamed to admit that I did plug the connector in with the soldering shown

my solder repair wasn't up to scratch and I was unable to examine the joint using higher magnification. Hi Lardman can you clarify exactly where to position probes (noob)

ie red on components indicated, black probe? Position.
Thank you
March 7th, 2022, 16:59
fzabkar has highlighted the locations for testing, these are with usb power on and the meter set to dc volts.
I found a board to check for you and you should be getting the following, or there about.
+5v - 4.89v
+5v Filtered - 4.82v
V1 - 2.48v
v2 - 1.06v
March 8th, 2022, 16:14
Thank you again Lardman and Fzabkar for your continued support advice and patience.
Here are the voltages from testing the board.
+5V = 5.04V
-5V Filtered = 5.02V
V1 = 2.46V
V2 = 1.06V
All seem OK?
March 8th, 2022, 16:27
All OK. Are you sure you don't hear any sound at all, even a soft ticking sound? You may need to place your ear on the drive.
If the drive is dead, you could purchase a cheap USB-TTL adapter and examine the drive's terminal report. This will tell us what is happening at the firmware level, if anything.
How to connect a terminal adaptor on a Samsung drive ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=189
March 8th, 2022, 17:42
You've covered most of the easy DIY stuff, but listen very carefully for clicks or beeps when first powering the drive on as this would indicate the head being stuck on the platter. Is the data important, many of us offer free evaluation reports.
March 9th, 2022, 7:28
Thank you Lardman for your reply.
I have placed the drive to my ear whilst plugged in no clicks or any sounds can be heard.
I may have lost some holiday photos etc but most if all the data are stored on a 2nd smaller drive.
It would have been nice to resurrect the drive but I've decided any further effort wouldn't be worth it. Thanks again for your assistance.
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