Western Digital PCB Swap Rule

[wrwiii12]

Wow great info sharing in here!!!

So I have a drive from a family member that contains a bunch of pictures which of course she didn't back up. I said I would see what I can do as I went to school for electronics and have worked in IT and ITSEC for years. HA! This hard drive recorvery detailed work makes me feel like an idiot so I give it up to you guys.

So here goes. It is a WD3200BEKT and I found a similar one off ebay. The MDL:, PCB first 2 sets of numbers, DCM (except 2nd character), and P/N match exactly. We will call family member one drive A and ebay one drive B.

A drive with A PCB - Drive spins up, sounds like heads are moving freely, but computer never sees the drive in computer manager. After 60-120 seconds a loud click happens, the drive stops spinning and now the computer sees the drive as a USB drive (not typical WD blah blah) but I can not access any data because the drive isn't spinning.
B drive with B PCB - Works perfect
A drive with B PCB - Same issue as A drive with A PCB
B drive with A PCB - Works perfect

So it is obviously a internal drive issue but would would make it spin and then stop after so long with a loud click and the the computer sees something just not the drive itself?

[northwind]

A drive with A PCB - Drive spins up, After 60-120 seconds a loud click happens, the drive stops spinning

I suppose you're connecting the drives via USB, via the same USB bridge, right?
Then you ruled out the usb enclosure/case as the culprit. You also ruled out the pcb (pcb swap worked without rom adaptation?).
So

So it is obviously a internal drive issue but would would make it spin and then stop after so long with a loud click and the the computer sees something just not the drive itself?

Now it's game over for DIY and if the data is important, it's pro time.

Good luck!