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
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seagate barracuda dead

August 6th, 2014, 16:03

hey. i have a seagate barracuda 7200.10 160gb
ST3160215AS
firmware 4.AAB

When drive is connect disk is not spinning and im getting a high pitch sound coming from pcb board. i have tested some diodes and i think they are ok. Can anybody give me some pointers please ill try upload picture with what i have tested and results i got

hope you can read text on picture

thanks

ian
Attachments
seagate.jpg

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 6th, 2014, 19:45

The "30000" component is a 30MHz crystal.

The white component near the EtronTech SDRAM is a shock sensor.

See http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html

AIUI your model can be repaired with a straight PCB swap, provided that the firmware is a match. Otherwise you might need to transfer the 25P05VP flash memory chip at the top left corner from patient to donor.

I would measure the resistances between ground and each of the 1R2 and 3R3 coils above the SMOOTH chip. Assuming that neither is shorted, I would then power up the board and measure the voltages at these same two points. I would also measure the voltage at pin #1 (nearest the dot on the PCB) of the 4833A chip near the SDRAM.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 12:08

hi thanks for reply. when you say "measure the resistances between ground and each of the 1R2 and 3R3 coils" do i put multimeter on diode setting and just touch a ground point copper ring around screw holes and then test both ways on diodes.
Im abit of a noob when it comes to this but can you tell me which ground to use and i take it i use black lead for this? then i will post results

thankyou

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 12:15

Hi, do a google image search on the SATA pinout. When you find out which is ground in the pinout, put the black lead on there and the red on the other test point. set your multimeter to Ohms.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 12:25

not sure if im doing this correctly but ive put black lead on ground and then tested the diodes both ways with the red cable and im getting

3R3 reads 540 &542
1R2 next to 3R3 reads 046 & 046
1R2 000 and 000 bleeps boths ways


thats if im doing it correctly

thanks

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 14:29

ISTM that the 46 ohm reading may be a bit low but it could in fact be OK.

The 0 reading for the second coil (they're not diodes) is to be expected because the coil is grounded on one side.

The next step is to measure the voltages. Select the 10V DC range on your meter (or whichever is appropriate). Place the black probe on ground (eg a screw hole or SATA ground), and place the red probe on the respective voltage test points. Of course you would need to power up the board.
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Vneg.jpg
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Vio_Vcore.jpg
Vio_Vcore.jpg (122.75 KiB) Viewed 3240304 times

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 15:20

Hi, right ive set multimeter to V..... i think this is correct as ive just tested a battery which read correctly.


the first picture the reading was 0.05

all other tests points read nothing

you want me to upload picture so you can see my multimeter settings?

thankyou

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:01

Are you getting +5V and +12V at the SATA power connector?

http://pinouts.ru/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:05

yeah im getting them readings

but i can hear a high pitched sound from one component but i'm not sure which 1 :(


thanks

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:10

not getting a reading from 1 2 and 3 but all others i am


EDIT: i was trying that on my external hard drive case and cant get a reading but when i connect it to pc power the 123 all show 3v but hard drive still not spinning when connect to pc or external hdd psu

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:28

Those voltages are generated by the SMOOTH chip. It sounds like it may be faulty, or it may be that it is not getting power from the SATA connector.

I confess that I don't recognise the component that you have identified as a fuse. I would have thought that a fuse would have relatively heavy copper tracks, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

I would measure the voltages across the capacitors around the SMOOTH chip, to confirm that it is receiving +5V and +12V. You could also measure the voltages at each end of the "fuse".
Attachments
SMOOTH_power.jpg
SMOOTH_power.jpg (160.27 KiB) Viewed 3240273 times

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:31

bean wrote:not getting a reading from 1 2 and 3 but all others i am


EDIT: i was trying that on my external hard drive case and cant get a reading but when i connect it to pc power the 123 all show 3v but hard drive still not spinning when connect to pc or external hdd psu

The HDD doesn't use the +3.3V supply pins, so that's OK.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 16:46

red 1's = 12v
orange = 5V
green = 3-4v
blue= 2.8v

and the purple ones i get no reading at all

thanks

EDIT: that chip does get abit warm
Attachments
SMOOTH_poweredit.jpg
SMOOTH_poweredit.jpg (97.29 KiB) Viewed 3240270 times

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 17:16

I'd say that the SMOOTH chip is dead, in which case there would be no economical way to repair the board.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 17:22

bugger :(

well thank you very much for your time and help very much appreciated

looks like ill have to try get a donor PCB :(

cheers :D

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 17:38

When you get your donor, I'd be interested in your comparative measurements for the "fuse".

Best of luck.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 17:54

hi again would this be any good as a donor or has it got to be exactly the same??

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160GB-Seagate ... 3f3acf9192

my HDD
s/n 9RA7GPJZ
ST3160215AS
P/N 9CY112-310
FIRMWARE 4.AAB
SITE CODE TK

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 7th, 2014, 22:08

I have (stupid :) ) idea:
Does this SMOOTH IC have external oscillator ? Maybe something damaged that oscillator and now PWM regs are working on very low frequency and thats why he can hear "high pitch sound".

If you have oscilloscope you could probe these coils, measure frequency and amplitude and it will tell us if they are doing these sounds.

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 8th, 2014, 12:57

hi it doesn't seem to be making a noise now. When i checked the dc on them points around smooth chip it stopped making noise but it still doesn't work. i don't have a oscilloscope sorry :(

thanks

Re: seagate barracuda dead

August 8th, 2014, 15:10

Jano952 wrote:Does this SMOOTH IC have external oscillator ?

One of the earliest SMOOTH chips (L7250) ran off an external SYSClk, but I confess that I don't understand where the OP's IC gets its clock.

http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datashe ... Xyuswx.pdf

Here is my guess as to how a HDD PCB based on the L7250 would bootstrap itself:

The L7250 incorporates a linear regulator with an external NPN pass transistor. This provides the Vio supply for the MCU. The MCU has an on-chip oscillator (in its IO section) that generates a clock from an external crystal. This clock is fed to the L7250's SYSClk input, and this then drives the SMOOTH IC's "system" logic. The L7250's PWM controller then generates the Vcore supply for the MCU. When both the Vio and Vcore supplies have risen to an appropriate level, the L7250 releases the -POR (Power On Reset) signal. The MCU then goes through its POST and initialises the SMOOTH registers. The MCU also enables and disables the preamp's negative supply (which is generated by the L7250).

The OP's SMOOTH IC doesn't appear to have a linear regulator or an external crystal, so AFAICT it must have an on-chip crystal oscillator. Otherwise I can't see how it could generate the PWM control for the Vio and Vcore supplies, both of which are switchmode types.

One way to narrow down how things work would be to stop the MCU's crystal from oscillating. To this end, it may be sufficient to just grab the crystal between one's fingers. If the Vcore and Vio supplies both disappear, then this would confirm that the SMOOTH needs the MCU's clock to generate them.
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