I have been wading through 20 or 30 posts trying to find something to shed light on this problem... and finally I think that if there is any hope of help is HERE, with the resident gurus...

I'm sorry if a make a few of the regulars laugh. but I had my WD1600 in an external HD case for sometime, and I bought a new external case for a different drive, problem here is that I inadvertently swapped the power supplies... BAD business. BEWARE of those.!
The STUPID chinese that make external enclosures DO NOT use standard PwrSupply pinouts.

Result: the +12V and Gnd pins ARE REVERSED in the mini DIN connector.
They use the same stupid connector for both.
Well: needless to say my HD got fried. no smoke, no noises, nothing, just plain dead. I know hat the internals, (heads, platters & motor) are good, because the flimsy power supplies dont provide enough power even to make it smoke... !

Now the QUESTION: What are the possibilities of reviving this HD swapping the circuit board with another from a similar HD. exact model # and how close should be the serial #?

I know that HD's have a lot of specifics in them, like the embedded firmware that changes with the production place and date, and internal bad sectors mapping registers in the controller flash memory and who knows what else.
But IS IT POSSIBLE, if so could I do it myself ? considering that I have a electronics engineering degree, and that I have been working with computers since 1984, (yes I'm that old, actually 52), well the fact is that I could even swap a surface mount IC from the PC board with no problems. (I'm familiar with all the ESD protection rules etc). the other side of the question is that I don't have access to any special equipment, hardware or tools like a programmer to transfer firmware from a board to the other.

The HD is a fairly common one;
Western Digital Caviar
Dive Parameters: LBA 312581808 - 160GB
PN or Model: WD1600-00GVA0
S/N: WCAL91493328
Date: 30 Sep 2004
DCM: HSBAYTJAA
Product of Thailand.

Please, any help will be welcomed, I have a lot of personal information in that HD that I'll hate to lose, 5 years + of memories, pictures, letters, some music that could not be created again, saved stuff, web links, too much. I know the RULE... Backup often, well I have some backups but there is a lot missing from them. I should have used mirroring, or some level of RAID or something, but.. not the case. too late.

On the other side I don't have a lot of CA$H to invest in this one, even though I could invest a lot of time trying to recover it.

THANKS in Advance for any help.

While there may not have been smoke, there is still a possibility the preamplifier chip located on the heads sustained damage. It is particularly susceptible to over-current damage.


That being said; I am guessing that you may have some luck with this if you are handy with soldering tools (Iron, Hot air station)

First, post a good resolution photo of the chip-side of the circuit board.

Can you upload a PCB photo ...












XRONIS

_________________
T3 Professional Data Recovery
http://www.t3-recovery.com

You probably have a shorted 5V TVS diode near the power connector on the HDD. There may be a zero ohm link which has opened as well. Remove the diode and bridge the link, if necessary.

For continued protection you can replace the 5V TVS diode with an SMAJ5.0A from Farnell, Mouser, Digikey.

Here we go again, finally managed to shot a few picts of the deceased (ok... critical condition) HD.
Take a look at the burnt motor controller, typical, it blew a leg out of the chip ! ! ! but the PCB trace still intact.
II'll check the diodes to see if the sacrifice themselves to protect.
if so, I'll replace them with donor diodes w the same specs from other donor WD HD.
But... the big question stills... did the other IC's survive, how to tell.
The motor IC drive ... question: is it generic for a series of WD HD's, if it is,
could it be swapped (for another with the same numbers) ..
again from a WD HD donor?..
too many questions together.. lets see one at the time.
.. now the picts

A question that comes to my mind is if the motor itself suffered damage from the high current that blew the IC ???
How to test the motor, is only a set of coils that can be tested measuring resistance, or has it some more internal electronics.??
Does anyone have a schematic of this or similar family (same basic board) WD HD?

Sorry, I misread your first post. I thought you had interchanged the +12V and +5V rails.

Anyway, I'm only an observer at these forums, but it appears to me that there are no protection diodes on your PCB, at least not near the power socket where you would normally expect to find them.

The motor is a three phase DC motor. I believe its speed is detected by sensing the back EMF of the windings. The 4 pins connect to the 3 phases plus common.

Here is a datasheet for a first generation SMOOTH controller (L7250):

http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datashe ... Xyuswx.pdf
http://wandrew.regruppa.ru/PCInfo/TechDoc/L7250(Smooth).pdf

The application circuit may give you an insight into the motor's construction.

When you swap the PCB, you may need to transplant the serial EEPROM (U12, AT25F1024 ?) from patient to donor.

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod ... oc1440.pdf

Desoldering U12 from patient PCB and soldering to Donor PCB.. simple

This.


Just be careful not to overheat the U12, as you could lose ROM contents if heated too much. Also be weary of too much heat on the PCB as you can warp layers

Greetings to all,
I find myself in a similar situation. I have the same model drive along with a WD2500JD that were smoked when a PSU went bad.
I have tried purchasing a new drive and swapping the PC Board without any luck.
I have been told that without a clean room the platters of the drive cannot be removed and and reinstalled in a working drive housing. Is this true? I have thought about constructing some type of Plexaglas housing and changing the platter myself.
Do the model, S/N & batch number have to be the same for one drive to read the platters?
Thanks for any help you might be able to give me.
S

Hi,

with such thinking you've got a great chance to mess up your drive in minutes.
there are quite a few threads about the matter, please take the time to find and read some.
Especially I recommend this

pepe

_________________
Adatmentés - Data recovery

Pepe,
Thanks for your input. I understand that the platters are quite fragile. I guess I just don't know how fragile.
I will take some time to read the information in the link.
Thanks,
S