Hi there,

I’m a newbie and I’m sorry about my lack of knowledge.

I hope maybe someone can help me with the diagnosis and the solution to fixing my dead Western Digital HDD. Here’s the model details:

MDL: WD5000AAJB - 00YRA0
DATE: 02 Dec 2007
DCM: HHNNNT2MBB
Product of Thailand

Drive Parameters: LBA 976773168 500.0 GB

Logic board PCB: 2060-701508-001 REV A

Here’s the problem: When both the 40-pin ribbon cable and 4-pin power cable is plugged into the drive, then it is completely dead, it doesn’t spin at all. But if I just plug in the 4-pin power cable, the drive seems to spin perfectly fine.

I thought maybe the failure point is at the Firewire Bridge or Controller in my enclosure, so I tried it with another enclosure, but the same thing happens.

Should I try to find a similar logic board and swap it with the existing one? If so, should I replace the new logic board with the existing rom chip?

Any suggestions please? Does anyone know where can I find a similar logic board?

I’m very desperate to get it fix.

Your help is much appreciated. Many thanks.

Try plugging it straight into the computer.

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

I supposed that guy tried to do it or am I idiot? LOL

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This user was found to be affiliated with Ace Lab/PC-3000. See this topic for details.

Thanks for your reply

I haven’t got a desktop at the moment to directly plug the 40-pin cable into. Do you think it might work? I might try and get my old desktop out of my folk’s garage and try it over the weekend.

Where do you think the problem lies?

The problem is in the controller which is in enclosure (firewire)
You should connect this drive to usual IDE. If this will not work, I can suggest you very good and not expensive data recovery service close to you if the drive won't spins/work via IDE.
PM me.

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This user was found to be affiliated with Ace Lab/PC-3000. See this topic for details.

Not necessarily enough information at this point. Plugging it straight into the computer will at least eliminate a possibility. I've not ever run across a drive that spins fine when powered but stops when the cable is plugged in. If it still does that when you plug it straight into the computer I would probably think PCB, but these have adaptive info that will need to be transferred to the new PCB if replacement is required.

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

Many thanks, I will try and get plug it in to a computer or usual IDE first and see how it goes. FingersX

Phew....I was lucky. It was a fault with the enclosure's controller (both of them). I went out and brought a new IDE to USB2.0 adapter which plugs directly into the HDD and now its all up and running again.
I'm now going to buy a WD My Book Mirror 2TB to store all my irreplaceable files.

Thanks everyone

Make sure it's in mirror mode and not stripe mode.

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