Damaged ROM on ST4000LM024 – Only Bare Die Left

[yoshi.07]

During a rework attempt on the ROM chip of a Seagate ST4000LM024 HDD, I accidentally damaged the chip and was only able to salvage the silicon die itself. The ROM was a Winbond W25Q16FWS04, and now I have only the bare die with no packaging, bonding wires, or substrate remaining—approximately 2mm x 1.5mm in size.

I would like to ask if there is any feasible way—either experimental or professional—to read or extract the ROM data directly from this bare die. I understand this may involve advanced techniques such as microprobing or decapping-based imaging, but I am looking for any practical suggestions or services that could help recover the firmware (BIOS) data from this chip.

As a backup option, I have located a potential donor drive on eBay: it is the same model (ST4000LM024), from the same manufacturing plant, with only a 4-day difference in the production date. If direct recovery from the bare die proves impractical, would this donor drive be realistically usable for firmware or ROM substitution? I am particularly concerned about compatibility and unique calibration data.

If anyone here has experience with such cases or can refer me to a lab or method that has succeeded with bare silicon dies, I would greatly appreciate your advice.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.

Best regards,

[fzabkar]

As a backup option, I have located a potential donor drive on eBay: it is the same model (ST4000LM024), from the same manufacturing plant, with only a 4-day difference in the production date. If direct recovery from the bare die proves impractical, would this donor drive be realistically usable for firmware or ROM substitution? I am particularly concerned about compatibility and unique calibration data.

The adaptives are unique. A donor won't help.

[Zero Alpha]

Post a photo. We have different options for this scenario.

[yoshi.07]

Post a photo. We have different options for this scenario.

The bare die is inside the green circle bellow.

I already bought a replacement PCB (same model as original), since the pattern in original one is destroyed.

But still have to manage to transfer the original SoC data and recover the original BIOS from the bare die into the new board.

[Zero Alpha]

Any chance you could post a very clear macro photo of that rom chip? We would really need to see it under microscope to know for sure. My experience says if someone is too cheap to pay for low level data recovery engineering then they will be too cheap for high level data recovery engineering.

[yoshi.07]

Any chance you could post a very clear macro photo of that rom chip? We would really need to see it under microscope to know for sure. My experience says if someone is too cheap to pay for low level data recovery engineering then they will be too cheap for high level data recovery engineering.

This was the best I could do to take the picture of a 2mm x 1.5mm ROM chip die.

It's really small and indeed a microscope would be required.

Thank you for checking.

[Zero Alpha]

Its expensive to solve now.