So my WD2500JB-00REA0 suddenly froze up, and on reboot BIOS freezes trying to detect it - then the drive makes a few "parking" sounds, three or so, stops for a while, then tries again, etc.

I don't see any obvious damage on the PCB but I'm also only looking at the back of it, not having the right Torc drivers to remove it at the moment.

It seems likely that this is at least in part an electronics problem, rather than a mechanical problem (?) since the drive is not detected by BIOS. I've seen stories on this forum and elsewhere of people with this problem solving it by buying a replacement board of the same revision and, if necessary, swapping the U12 firmware chip.

Unless steered elsewhere by you all, I'm willing to bet on the PCB being the issue, which means that in order to recover my data without losing my house I'd need either a new board of the same revision, or get someone else to swap the boards/U12 for me. Does that sound about right?

Here's the salient information:

MDL: WD2500JB-00REA0
Date: 08 Apr 2007 M
DCM: HSCANTJCA (this DCM only seems to be associated with WD400JB and WD800JB drives according to Google, which surprises me?)
Board revision, etched: 2060-701292-002 REV A
Model listed on nearby barcoded sticker: 2061-701292-C00 AF

If anyone can help with this in the aforementioned ways - either by having a board of the correct revision (and maybe even DCM!) they're willing to sell or rent to me, or by being able to swap the board for me and get the drive going again for a fee - please reply. I'm in Ontario, Canada, if it matters.

Thanks!!

Sorry but the pcb is fine. Problem is 99 percent heads or in any case not DIYable without very expensive tools. If you really want the pcb I can sell anyway.

Hi lachek. The noise that you are describing could potentially be a PCB fault on this series of Western digital, but it would be far more likely to be an SA problem or the heads may be weak, failed or failing.

Could you describe the noise in a little more detail. Does the speed of the motor seem to change once the "parking" noise has occurred a few times? Slowing temporarily then speeding back up again before further "parking" sounds.

After the initial batch of three (or so?) "parking" noises, the drive does go quiet for some time before, seemingly "trying again" which results in several more noises, then a period of quiet, etc. I do believe it eventually stopped altogether, until the system was restarted.

I understand the suspicion about it being more likely to be the heads than the PCB, and have dealt with enough bad hard drives in my time to know this is typically the cause. However, in this case, the BIOS hangs on even detecting the drive at initial boot, which is something it typically does even before the first "tick" is ever heard from the drive (i.e., the heads start moving). That's what lead me to believe that this may be a PCB thing. Am I off track?

yes.

I am afraid so, your case is 99% heads or SA. The BIOS hangs because the drive stays in a busy state until it is able to load its firmware or alternatively (eventually) it gives up.

This series of WD takes a while to give up hence the hanging.

It seems curious to me that the drive wouldn't be able to load its firmware because there's something wrong with the heads, and as I mentioned my PC would normally identify the drive even before the heads started moving, but I'm new at this and I'll take your word for it.

Barring any dissenting opinions, I'll reconsider embarking on this experiment.

Thanks for your help!

p.s. Depending on what you do you'll screw the drive even more. At present it is a not expensive problem. If data is not important and have money to waste go on with 'experiment' .

Yeah, so, I don't have money to 'waste', but I might have money to 'spend' in order to figure out if any of that 250GB is really important to someone or not.

But you've been telling me from the beginning in no uncertain terms that I'm wrong and I should absolutely send the drive to professional data recovery services (this is me inferring, here, since you give no other DIY options). Further, granaryloaf seems to know the boot process of a WD drive blow-by-blow and appears to be telling me that 'this is exactly how WD drives behave when there is a head or SA problem, not a PBC problem'. So given that nobody has offered any dissenting opinions yet, I see no need to throw away good money and time, and just cut my losses.

All the PROS here including me know the guts of these drives and how it works, how it starts and how are the symptoms. If you really want the PCB , as you don't believe, many people will be happy to sell it to you, it's just easy money. I have more than one if you really want one - just don't ask later why it doesn't work or why you get the exact same symptoms. It was just to avoid you a waste of time and money on a non-useful PCB swap.

P.S. at present (last time I give this advice) a relatively cheap recovery is still possible, open the top cover or try trinkering with the drive and then - assuming someone will get an already tampered drive - the recovery price skyrockets. So DON'T do attempts.
I would help you if I were near you but only the expenses to send the drive back and forth are not exactly cheap.
If I were you I would pack the drive and wait for better times (don't expect the prices for professional DR will fall) , at present the data is safe and sound INSIDE the drive. Store it in a safe place in safe environment.

It is a common misconception that all of the drive's firmware is stored on the PCB, it is split with the vast majority being stored on the platters themselves. Only the bare minimum required to find the SA on the platter is written in ROM on the vast majority of drives. There are of course exceptions to this.

Hope this helps you?

This is not accurate. As granaryloaf is saying, all of the firmware is on the platters except for a small amount on the PCB whose function is to start the rest. The info that is required for ID is not part of what is on the PCB.

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

That makes better sense to me now. Thanks for taking the time to explain. That also explains to me why it's so important the U12 chip goes along with the old platters, regardless of drive geometry, as it'd presumably identify how to read the rest of the firmware off those platters.

@BlackST, in the very limited amount of time I've spent on these forums, I've seen a lot of people self-identify as "pros" and then proceed to give outright insulting, patronizing, and frequently incorrect or at least fatally incomplete and unhelpful feedback (such as, for example, "Am I off track?" -> "yes."). I read a success story that sounded identical to mine, same drive, same (exact) symptoms, fixed by swapping PCB + U12 chip, fellow went into great detail to explain what had happened and even had a step-by-step writeup and picture slideshow of his fix. I understand now that his case may have been an outlier, but without getting information to the contrary in detail sufficient to match what I came in with, you can't fault me for "not believing". I didn't spend more than a few years in sales and I wasn't particularly great at it, but even I know that patronizing your potential clients - contrary to what some believe - does not instill confidence or respect in you as a professional, it just makes the customer want to believe differently (true or not). Just a little bit of helpful advice in kind.

As it turns out, the really important data I thought was lost was actually sitting on a secondary drive in the system all along (the bootloader was on this drive, but the system/user profile partition was not, which was enough to confuse me). I've still lost a lot of data but none of it crucial. I may attempt a PCB replacement just for the hell of it if I can locate one locally at some point (as you say, these things do have a tendency to turn up from time to time - I've seen a LOT of dead WD 80GB SEs, which apparently have been known to use the same rev PCB, for example). If so, I'll definitely post my findings here for others.

Thanks everyone for your assistance!

Try it then . I am a service engineer not a book writer. About the rest, I think you are wrong but thanks anyway for the advice.

Hi Lachek,

U have got the most appropriate answer already in the first 2 replies, all the rest is just disbelief and other replies to your disbelief
U are asking advice, but not believing it, then why ask?
To be honest all these info is already on the forum, that's why 'pros' will not want to write it down once more, yes, they are saving some of their time for good reason.


pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

I agree. In fact I often ask myself, why would anyone entrust their valuable data to one of these people?

Because unlike you, most members of the forum have knowledge that extends beyond TVS repair, SMART analysis, and COPYR

Seriously though, your slowly developing the 'I know more than you, I am better than you' syndrome that you say you hate

I'm genuinely disturbed by your statement.

I have never claimed to be a pro, and I have said on several occasions that I would not even consider myself an amateur. Furthermore, I have confessed my ignorance of modern hard drive technology on at least one occasion. All I have ever claimed is that I have complementary knowledge and experience. As Dirty Harry says, a man's got to know his limitations, and I believe I understand and accept mine.

I despise the term "guru" because I see it as pompous and elitist. In fact few things fire me up more than arrogant or pretentious people. They need to be brought back down to earth. On several occasions I have demonstrated that the "gurus" don't know as much as they pretend they do. Perhaps that's what has given you a misleading picture of me?

That said, I will take your criticism onboard.

@ BlackST: I've sent you a PM, thank you if you answer me.

Quite old post...

anyway, I have got here one of the drive in subject.

It does spin up, makes exactly 6 clicks, spins down, as soon the spin down finishes, spins up again, makes 2 clicks, spins down, as soon the spin down finishes, spins up again, makes 2 clicks, spins down and after this third spin down, never spins up anymore (for test purpose I had left the power on for more than 2 minutes) until I power-cycle the drive.

Reading through this entire post looks like that other drives are repeating the attempts and so I'm wondering if, for this case, the issue may be the board instead than heads or SA.

Thank you for any opinion and tip.

Cor

On clicking WD drives with L-shaped Marvel boards, PCB failure is fairly common.

Alignment or weak heads could also be the culprit. I'd try another PCB first. The service tracks on these earlier drives are narrow and mechanical work is exacting (also exacerbating).

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