WD5000AAJS Dead PCB

[armedtoe]

I've been rattling my brain, trying to keep up with various threads I've found on this forum, and I've reached a standstill.

I have a WD5000AAJS-22yfa0 hard drive that is unrecognizeable by anything. Eventually shows up in Device Manager as a " SCSI Device" and in the bios, it identifies as whatever other SATA drive I have connected.

The Patient does not have a U12 Chip. I do not know how to identify Marvell/ROYL. I have access to WDR 3.2. I've been unable to locate the 5.3 version. (I have a .rar with an unknown password).

I am able to read the ROM from the original PCB (gives me a success message).
I'm just unsure what steps to take. Can someone help?
This is my first serious hardware-based data recovery aside from unsticking heads from a platter.
I also have two newer lightning damaged WD drives with swapped PCB/ROM chips I will likely pursue if I'm able to get this working.

Thanks!~

[jermy]

Would you mind to explain to a noob like me, why have you came to a conclusion that the PCB is dead ?
And if indeed IT IS dead, how do you do that ?

I am able to read the ROM from the original PCB (gives me a success message).

[armedtoe]

Would you mind to explain to a noob like me, why have you came to a conclusion that the PCB is dead ?
And if indeed IT IS dead, how do you do that ?

The drive spins up, clicks a few times, and then stops spinning. THEN it shows up in the device manager, but it shows up as " SCSI Device" and it's inaccessible.
There is no knocking or sounds I've heard on drives with failing/bad heads.
When I cover up the data pins (leaving only the pins that go to the motor), it spins without issue. (motor OK)

And i was able to read the ROM off the old board using the "flash" button on WDR 3.2 when pulling up the "scsi device."

AFAIK, since the board I have doesn't have a U12 chip (dedicated bios flash storage), I need to pull some information off the old IC and flash to the new - or perhaps instruct the new PCB to pull the backup information off of the hard drive somehow.

The main user I've seen in the threads has been "Spildit" who seems to be the expert in this matter.

[armedtoe]

Would you mind to explain to a noob like me, why have you came to a conclusion that the PCB is dead ?
And if indeed IT IS dead, how do you do that ?

The drive spins up, clicks a few times, and then stops spinning. THEN it shows up in the device manager, but it shows up as " SCSI Device" and it's inaccessible.
There is no knocking or sounds I've heard on drives with failing/bad heads.
When I cover up the data pins (leaving only the pins that go to the motor), it spins without issue. (motor OK)

And i was able to read the ROM off the old board using the "flash" button on WDR 3.2 when pulling up the "scsi device."

AFAIK, since the board I have doesn't have a U12 chip (dedicated bios flash storage), I need to pull some information off the old IC and flash to the new - or perhaps instruct the new PCB to pull the backup information off of the hard drive somehow.

The main user I've seen in the threads has been "Spildit" who seems to be the expert in this matter.

[hdd_sand]

Would you mind to explain to a noob like me, why have you came to a conclusion that the PCB is

[hdd_sand]

99.9% sure your issue is heads and not PCB, just saying

[pcimage]

If the drive spins up and clicks then the PCB cannot be dead, by definition.

It's 99% likely that the heads will be bad and you're wasting your time messing about with the PCB. And you are potentially causing even more damage by having the drive keep spinning up, clicking and spinning down with possible damaged heads

[fzabkar]

Does the PCB have an 88i6745-TFJ1 MCU? This MCU is affected by "head mimic" faults.

[armedtoe]

If the drive spins up and clicks then the PCB cannot be dead, by definition.

Well I have two drives that had a fried PCB due to lightning with a physically burnt chip. After a PCB swap and BIOS chip swap, they have nearly the exact same behavior (unrecognizeable, spin up and stop). I imagine WD drives require an extra level of finagling.

[armedtoe]

Does the PCB have an 88i6745-TFJ1 MCU? This MCU is affected by "head mimic" faults.

Yes it does.

[pcimage]

If the drive spins up and clicks then the PCB cannot be dead, by definition.

Well I have two drives that had a fried PCB due to lightning with a physically burnt chip. After a PCB swap and BIOS chip swap, they have nearly the exact same behavior (unrecognizeable, spin up and stop). I imagine WD drives require an extra level of finagling.

That'll be because the preamp has been zapped, due to the mostly ineffective protection employed in WD PCB's.

[pcimage]

Does the PCB have an 88i6745-TFJ1 MCU? This MCU is affected by "head mimic" faults.

Yes it does.

Worth a shot, but it's not that common in reality.

If you can get a PCB of the exact same model and fit it, power it up and see what happens. If it still clicks and spins down then preamp is bad, or if it sounds normal and stays spinning then preamp is likely OK and that PCB with ROM recreation is definitely an option

Last edited by pcimage on March 3rd, 2017, 16:04, edited 1 time in total.

[fzabkar]

See this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34432

You might find these links useful:

Catastrophic failures in Western Digital PCBs:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=1119&p=5033

Oxidisation on Western Digital PCBs:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=649&p=1789

[armedtoe]

Does the PCB have an 88i6745-TFJ1 MCU? This MCU is affected by "head mimic" faults.

Yes it does.

If you can get a PCB of the exact same model and fit it, power it up and see what happens. If it still clicks and spins down then preamp is bad, or if it sounds normal and stays spinning then preamp is likely OK and that PCB with ROM recreation is definitely an option

New PCB Spins up, clicks some ~10 times. (quiet clicks, not knocks).
Drive shows up in device manager after the drive stops spinning.

Old PCB Spins up, makes some buzzing noises and loud knocks, sometimes a few beeps, then spins down.
Drive shows up after it spins down.
(the first few times I hooked it up, it acted more like the new one aka spin up, clicks, spin down)

Preamp then? aka head swap? Probably beyond me if so.

If it's a problem, the donor pcb is from a 250gb wd2500aajs-40vwa1 but the printed PCB model number is the same.

[pcimage]

That's not giving it a fair crack of the whip, you really need one of the similar model.

500gb xxYFxx

[fzabkar]

@armedtoe, you might like to run my WD ROM verification tool against your ROM dump, or I could do it for you.

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/temp/wdromv11.exe
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/temp/wdROMv11.bas