IBM Deskstar Troubles

[iONic]

I have an IBM Deskstar Model: IC35L120AVVA07-0, 7200 RPM, P/N: 07N9219, MCL: H32657, 120GB HD that is giving me troubles.
I was using this drive as backup only and was configures as a SLAVE with Logical partition, NTFS. When my computer no longer booted up and I was hearing this clicking and clunking noise I thought it was the Primary drive that was the issue. But it wasn't. I tried the drive in 2 different systems with the same result. The drive spins up to or close to speed, then starts clicking and clunking. The results are the same with or without the EIDE cable connected. Both Windows operating systems,
XP or DOS cannot recognize the drive.

I was thinking about getting an identical Drive board, same Model, PN, and MCL, but have doubts about its effectiveness as my belief is that the problem resides in the drive itself.

Any suggestion you might have to spare me the $500 charge from OnTrack or another data recovery service would be most helpful!

[mr_spokk]

Hi,
You're probably have a headfailure on that one.....not uncommon on those drives.
But even if it was a Pcb problem, you would need to read out the Nv-Ram...and reprogram it to the new one.
And that can't be done without special tools.
So if you have importent stuff on it, leave it to recovery company...
Thats all the advise I can give you.

Regards/ Bosse

[iONic]

Even if I obtain an identical PCB I would still have to "read out the Nv-Ram...and reprogram it to the new one"?
Not sure what that means though...

I had swapped out the PCB with another IBM Deskstar PCB....not identical and received the same symptoms...does this
tell us anything?

[pepe]

Hi,

for PCB swap U need an exact match of the model number at least (IC35L120AVVA07), but it is possible that a FW/nvram incompatibility occurs.
however the symptoms prolong a head/preamp damage.

pepe