I have to replace the PCB on a LaCie terabyte external drive. It is made up of (4) identical Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB ATA/133 HDs (IDE). The drive appears to be RAID0, using a stethoscope I identified the drive that was not spinning up. I swapped out the PCB from that HD with the PCB from one of the other drives in the LaCie case & the drive spins up and is detected by VOOM Technologies HardCopy Drive Duplicator. I think the LaCie drive will work again if I can get a 4th PCB that matches the the remaining 3. I am willing to buy a whole Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB ATA/133 HD if I have to, but how can I make sure it comes with the right PCB? My experience in trying to get matching HDs is that the PCBs vary within HD models and are not always cross compatible. Does anyone have a recommendation for a source that will confirm that the PCB will match? Also, while I am asking, is there an alternative to replacing the PCB, such as diagnostics or repair tools?

By far the easiest way to get this sorted is to buy any HDD (must be at least the size of the failed drive and same interface - IDE/SATA). You can clone the failed HDD (using a PCB from one of the working drives) to your newly acquired drive. You can then pop the good PCB back onto it's drive and put the 4 drives back into the enclosure (3 original drives + 1 imaged drive). There are plenty of utilities around which will allow you to do this. You need to do a full bit-image copy of the drives and if possible, chop the number of sectors on the new drive to match the original failed HDD.

Hope this helps...

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Data Recovery Ireland

CK, thanks for the prompt reply, I should have included that detail, sorry, I forgot to mention, I cloned the MaXLine Plus II 250GB ATA while it was working with the PCB swapped from the other MaXLine HD to a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 250GB IDE HD & installed the clone into the LaCie drive but it still didn't work, I think all (4) HDs must be identical for the LaCie RAID0 to work, but that may not be the case. I did confirm that the DiamondMax worked independently before & after the swap so I know the HD & PCB are good, I also tried swapping the PCB off the DiamondMax to the MaXLine, that didn't work either.

The drives don't need to be identical, but it does matter that they all have the same LBA. How did you clone it? Are you sure you have them in the right order? You could always hook all 4 drives up to a PC and work on them with Winhex/X-Ways/Raid Reconstructor to ensure you've got the order right.

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Data Recovery Ireland

I'll check the LBA now, I cloned it with VOOM Technologies HardCopy, I've used it 75+ times to clone HDs in standalones, servers & RAIDs. It makes an identical copy that boots & functions exactly like the original. As for the order, the clone is in the same bay with the same connectors so I am sure the order is correct. I didn't think about having to rebuild the RAID, I'll look at that also. Thanks.

Check the jumper settings on the "failed" drive when you put it back in, it probably needs to be set to CS.

What Filesystem was it running prior to failure? Is it a NAS or a standalone unit?

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Data Recovery Ireland

I can get you a board for your drive.

I will need a "code" number from your drive.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Hi ,
You Could Clone The Failed HDD to another Using Borrowed PCb From Rest Three And then Try Runtime Software RAID Reconstructor ,I Am 100% Sure the Software could Take the Data Out ,Before you do anything i suggest clone the rest 3 hdd also

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Give more details about the model and pcb number or if u can give the pic of the hdd i can search for a compatible pcb in my stock .

Hi ,
You Could Clone The Failed HDD to another Using Borrowed PCb From Rest Three And then Try Runtime Software RAID Reconstructor ,I Am 100% Sure the Software could Take the Data Out ,Before you do anything i suggest clone the rest 3 hdd also[/quote]


Thanks Amarbir, I will give that a try.

Give more details about the model and pcb number or if u can give the pic of the hdd i can search for a compatible pcb in my stock


Thanks rameez, I'll try to get you more details.

What code do you need, where do I find it?

On a front label of the drive, left bottom side of the label has CODE: YAR.....
PM your details to me.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

and 5 letters on the pcb like T4GBA .