WD3000BB - what exactly is wrong with the PCB?

[Ligr]

Hey,

I have this WD3000BB - IDE HDD. I have been keeping it for ages - it died on my like 7 years ago (just stopped turning on) and I meant, at some point, to rescue it.

That point is now

I looked around, and a possible cause is the PCB, since the HDD refuses to turn on, at all. I dismounted it and took some pictures. The area around R89 looks really tacky. Could anybody confirm my suspicion? Could it (also) be the TVS diode?

[ddrecovery]

First thing to do is to clean up the contact points. They are the 18 brass connections to the top right of the PCB (as shown). Use an eraser, being careful not to hit any other electronic parts.

[mr_spokk]

Better to find a working Pcb with the same number on it....like 2060-70xxxx
And then swap the ic on U12.

[pcimage]

The above two posts are very likely to succeed, in ascending order of likelihood.

[Ligr]

Thank you very much for the advice! I will try first cleaning the contacts and then replacing the board alltogether.

[fzabkar]

Your PCB does not appear to have TVS diodes.

Can you measure the voltages at the -5V, +3.3V and Vcore test points?

Attachments

[Ligr]

Update: I tried cleaning the contact points with an eraser. They are now shiny! However, this did not help. The HDD does not turn on.

Is there a point in testing voltages or should I just go ahead and swap the PCB?

[ddrecovery]

Update: I tried cleaning the contact points with an eraser. They are now shiny! However, this did not help. The HDD does not turn on.

Is there a point in testing voltages or should I just go ahead and swap the PCB?

Fzabkar really knows what hes talking about. If he suggests it, it worth doing.

[Ligr]

Okay, will do. I will grab a multimeter these days and see what the results are.

[data-medics]

Only thing I'd really bother checking is the zero ohm resistors such as L4 & L9 with a multimeter to be sure they haven't burned open and that you have continuity (if they have burned you can just jumper with a blob of solder. Otherwise, I'd just replace it. I really doubt an old PCB like this will cost much.

[Ligr]

Well, I am in Europe, and so far I did not have much luck in finding one. The US stores like donordrives.com lists it at 55 bucks...

[Ligr]

well, I am in Europe - have not had much luck finding a cheap PCB yet. And the US websites for hdd parts list it at around 55$ + international shipping...

[drHDD]

Hello
I have board for $20+shipping. PM me if you are interested.
Thanks

[Ligr]

Guys,

I am happy to report that with replacement PCB (I can only praise drHDD highly), the HDD now works

[Ligr]

Update: well, that did not go as planned.

What I did: used the board shipped by drhdd to see if the HDD boots and spins. It did.

Tried to resolder the U12 chip myself, as there are no services like this available where I live.

Aaaaand...I messed it up. Basically I now have the old U12 chip without the "legs" (six connectors that go to the board) and the new board is not functional either.

Is there anybody willing to provide a new board and resolder the U12 chip and ship it back to me? Please PM me here.

[jermy]

What i really can understand is, in MAR 7th the drive worked

Guys,

I am happy to report that with replacement PCB (I can only praise drHDD highly), the HDD now works

And suddenly, a half a year latter it stopped working ?

[Ligr]

Here is how the original U12 chip looks right now https://imgur.com/a/q1dYJ .

Spildit: this is precisely what happened. I wrote here once I reconnected the replacement PCB to the HDD and it spun up and worked. However, in the post above I described what happened when I attempted to replace the U12 chip myself. A big fail.

I then got frustrated and kind of left the thing sit for a few months, but now, after doing the damage, I would like to give this task to someone much more knowledgeable than me. I mean, I put PCs together and took them apart often enough, but this was surely not a job for me who had no soldering skills.

[fzabkar]

You could always try hdd-parts.com.

[drHDD]

It's old drive. You don't need actual rom content - you need just find rom content with same firmware version inside. if you can send drive to me - I can recover data.

[data-medics]

It's old drive. You don't need actual rom content - you need just find rom content with same firmware version inside. if you can send drive to me - I can recover data.

Actually I think this is a Buccaneer family Marvel IDE drive. So will probably need to rebuild ROM code from SA. You might get lucky, as there wasn't a ton of adaptives in the ROM back then. But, I'd still plan on needing to rebuild it.