The drive went out when i was at work and it left a wake up problems. First I show up and my computer is off(it usualy is on all day) and it wouldn't power up. After much playing, I found a funny smell from this drive and the computer fans at least powered up when unplugged.

The problem took out my mother board; Asus RMA'd and should receive it today.

I noticed the copper braided SATA cable was oxidized! When I peeled back the drive end of the cable; the braided sleeve looks like it shorted everything out.

My father has a few Esata units with multiple hard drives and tried to stick it in place of a spare.... We smelled burning and popped it out. The power light for that slot shows always on and doesn't work anymore.

I would be willing to swap the PCB so I won't have to collect 11,000 Mp3's again....

Any help would be appreciated.

Send u r PCB Picture of both sides, PCB Swap is not solution for this another drive PCB will not support u r drive.

You have a very bad Power supply. Remove it and replace.
One of the options to get your data back it to serch for TVS solution on this forum.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

The following thread has detailed instructions and photos:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/mes ... 109#M18109

One thing that should be considered is that not all damaged PCB cases can be resolved by replacing PCB. In many cases, there is an underlying failure such as bad preamp.

Maybe damage is to Motor chip and HDD has faulty motor.

sometimes, things are not always as straightforward as they may seem.

would you like to post image of your PCB chips side here?

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data recovery service[/b]

Sorry I have been a little busy lately. The mother board came back but the NIC doesn't work so it's going back for another RMA.

I will get pictures but first I have to find the right size t-star (anyone know the size of their head?). The visible part seems fine but I can smell the burning right by the sata/power ports.

What should I do to check my power supply; should I hook up a voltage meter to the connector i was using?

Could any of the hardware be swapped from the donor drive as long as I swap the ROM chip?

I did read the entire sticky about hard drives and what each part is doing. I guess anything is worth a try at this point; what have I got to loose right now?

T9 is best, T7 is loose but will still get them.

A bit too late now... something like THIS and a load on the rails to test under working condition.
This is a crap PS (look at the values) in fact was signalling the failures when measuring.

P.S. common 10$ multimeters and without a load won't give exact reading. I have calibrated PROFESSIONAL instruments and - strange but true - this tester , if 0,1 V precision is sufficient, seems accurate. The PG measurement is accurate too. Sometimes happen

IMHO, PC PSUs are inherently "cheap". I have a 1000W mainframe PSU that produces 150A at 5V, yet still manages to produce stable +/-12V and -5V rails. Each rail is user adjustable by means of externally accessible trimmers, and each rail has a pair of load sense wires that allow the PSU to automatically compensate for IR losses in the cables.

By contrast, a PC PSU is typically a compromise. The rails are not independent. Instead they all are derived from the same secondary winding (except for the +5VSB standby supply). "Regulation" is typically achieved by sensing a weighted average of the heaviest rails, +5V and +12V. This means that, if the +5V rail droops, then the +12V rail rises by about 4 times the amount.

Here is the circuit diagram and description for a typical ATX PSU:
http://pavouk.org/hw/en_atxps.html

See the voltage sense resistors R20, R21, R25 and R26. Pin 1 of the PWM controller, TL494, is maintained at 2.5V by feedback action.

The regulation formula is:

5.0V * 3K01/(3K01 + 3K01) = V12 * (3K09||150K||5K6) / (27K + 3K09||150K||5K6) + V5 * (3K09||150K||27K) / (5K6 + 3K09||150K||27K)

This reduces to:

2.50 = V12 * 0.0678 + V5 * 0.327

For this PSU, if the +5V rail increases by 50mV, say, then the +12V rail will fall by 241mV.

This means that a CPU which is powered from the +5V supply will cause the +12V rail to vary significantly in tandem with its own level of activity. I can easily demonstrate this with a CPU cooler such as CPUidle and a hardware monitor such as Motherboard Monitor 5.

Well I have 2 snap on multi-meters and 2 oscilloscopes if necessary. I don't think it's the power supply though. My mother board crapped out at the same time. While I was calling Thermaltake about it, we tested the power supply via jumpers but I don't know if that really shows if it will kill a HDD. Any other thoughts? I have other hard drives on that same Rail and they were fine.... In matter of fact I am using them right now.




I have speedfan installed. Should I just keep an eye after this?

Whoever suggest the tool sizes; that will take the top off the HDD and not the PCB....These screws are much smaller.

A bad mb won't kill a disk - by commands? I give up. I would have already fixed the disk...

The PCB screws are T6 size.

I always monitor a new installation.

I was once sold a minitower case that supposedly had a 400W PSU, but MBM5 showed excessive fluctuation in the supplies when the load varied. The changes in fan speed were an audible clue that something wasn't right. The PSU worked fine for several months, but I decided to replace it. When I took it apart and examined the ratings of the component parts, I came to the conclusion that it was barely capable of sustaining 200W, let alone 400W.

My bad, was looking at sam's and wd's