i had this hdd installed in an external usb adapter case the adapter board possibly shorted
the drive was functioning at the time ... then i smelled something and the control board was very hot

i got a set of drives for swap part boards they seem to be worse than the drive i have the all click then are silent
but when i swap the closest serial pcb to my drive it spins up normal but still wont show up in bios
i tried to get hmdd but wont see the drives either (bios would need to see also correct ?)

stored data drive
wd1600bevs-00rst0 no sound warm to touch
when i swap pcb from drive 1 sounds normal


parts drives
1 wd1600bevs-00rst0 clicks
2 wd1600bevs-60rst0 clicks
3 wd1600bevs-22rsto clicks

if someone could point me in the right direction for backing up as much firmware romage as i need .
i searched but couldn't find what program was used to make the restore in the firmware downloads (hopefully i dont need that prom adapter)
the data on this drive isnt super critical im just not sure what all was on the drive if i could at least get a look at the directory
and im learning more that i ever thought there was to know about hdds

Without specialist equipment you will not be able to deal with the ROM on these, as it is stored in the MCU.

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

Apart from moving a BGA chip, "something else" may be fried too.