Hello all,

I have learned an incredible amount of info from you folks. I am hoping for an assessment. I have a Western Digital WD1600ADFD drive that is not recognized by BIOS. When powered up the motor is definitely spinning up, and the armature is definitely moving, but then I get a click, spin down, and then repeat.

I have successfully procured a matching drive. Everything matches -- they were made 3 days apart in the same country. I moved the U12 chip from the faulty drive to the donor PCB and installed it on the failed drive. It did not change anything on the failed drive. When I moved the donor PCB back to the donor drive, it is still recognized correctly and hums along OK. I am assuming the moving of the chip went OK.

When the drive was working last, it was performing a large graphics file write. Then, blue screen of death and click-spin on reboot. When I pulled the PCB off there was quite a bit of 'brown crud' on the contacts between the motor/armature and the PCB. This 'brown crud' was not present on the donor drive at all. Isopropyl alcohol cleaning of the contacts did not help.

This is my situation and I'm hoping your experience and expertise can guide my next step.

Thanks so much.

You need a help of the pro.
There is nothing more you can do for your drive, because read/write heads have failed.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

I'm curious to see a picture of the PCB.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Sure I'll take a photo when I get home. It is a 2061-701384-800AE. "Brown crud" was probably not very accurate. More like very oxidized looking. Not quite "burned out" though close. The grounds around the screws all have it too. The shiny pads show through, though, where the contacts were.

I read somewhere else these drives appreciate grounding through the case, and this one was not (Dell plastic 'sled'). Probably more myth than anything.

Apparently it is working, just needs a U12 chip... if anyone is interested, it is in a static bag (with a loose U12)...

Pcb ok, brown is ok - it's the finishing, not oxydation. Your problem are bad head(s). Time to ask a pro.

I won't spend thousands of dollars on recovery so I didn't have anything to lose...

I swapped the heads between the donor drive and the failed drive. I did so in a makeshift "cleanroom" (again, nothing to lose here...).

Long story short the new heads went in without much hassle. They were easier to do than I expected. I was practicing with a long dead WD 30GB drive and separating the heads was much easier on this drive as was removing the limiter (pull a pin vs. unwedge it). Also, the entire permanent magnet & voicecoil/head assembly comes out as one.

Before the drive would spin up, click+hummmmmmm, spin down, repeat. Now it spins up, click hum click hum, spin down, turns off. So, different response, but not fixed.

I tried returning the PCB to original state with U12, etc., different combos of ROM chip and PCB, but same result every time.

Any suggestions, more than interested to know anecdotally. Is SA repair even an option? Ripping on me is fine, too.

No need for ripping. You were just experimenting which is cool; as long as you never wanted that data back. You have one of the worst drives for a "first timer". These drives suck. A pro could have helped (might still be able to) but I understand that you don't want to spend any money on it.

So basically, since equipment to do what you're asking about does cost thousands and you don't want to pay a pro to do it, you're done with any attempt to fix the drive. I'm not saying it can't be recovered but, let's say that by chance your headswap did go perfectly (I highly doubt that it did) and your heads are now working, you still have many obstacles to overcome that don't come with free software fixes. What I mean is say you only have one head being destroyed, a pro (or amateur with thousands invested) might be able to disable them and keep moving but as far as I can tell you don't have the equipment or any experience doing it so your likelihood of success is so low. And yes it takes expensive equipment and no free software is available to do what I'm talking about. Overall, it was a valiant attempt but really this wasn't the drive to "practice" on.

SA repair NOT an option.

PS - not sure about the "entire permanent magnet & voicecoil/head assembly" coming out as one.

Try again, maybe it was not a perfect match.

I guess it didn't work.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Have you attempted to move the heads back to the donor drive? That will let you know if it was a fault in your technique or a problem with donor selection. At this time I can tell you to put the cover back on the patient drive and try moving the heads between your donor and another good match. The 160 can be had with a little patience and good technique. The real question is did you check your practice by spining up the 30 gb? With that drive you can pull the heads, leave the cover open, come back the next day, smoking a cigarette with bad dandruff and still get it working again.

You can read all the posts you like here but guessing at the problem without specialized tools doesn't work to well.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.