Hi Gurus,
Story is friend broke the plastic part of SATA connector on their hard drive. No problem there they were just glueing it back on. Problem whilst it was left to properly dry their pet dog decided it would be a nice chew toy and chewed off some of the sata pins and some of the little chips on board.
So hard drive was given to me and i was trying to source a PCB board of same model, p/n, firmware, date code, site code. etc
I couldn't find one so i emailed the store onepcbsolution and inquired if they had any.
unfortantly they didn't have exact in stock but had one for ST3200826AS with all the same stats as mine and assured me with a firmware transfer it would work.
So i got that done and got the replacement board
Unfortantly it doesn't work. When i start it up the hard drive physically pulses and the "Smooth" gets red hot.
I emailed and they said there nothing else they can do to help.
I have another drive with same stats cept with different firmware number. i tried that to check it wasn't a pcb board problem, but it does the same thing. I hope i haven't damaged the drive.
Now doing some more research i've found out now there more then just firmware etc needed to be matched.
I've read some saying that certain Chips need to be desoldered and resoldered on the board. Would that work? and if so what chips need to be done. Also would i be better transplanting onto the ST3200826AS or my spare ST3250823AS with the different firmware?

Original PCB Stats
Model: ST3250823AS
P/N: 9Y7389-301
Firmware: 3.02
Site Code: AMK
Date Code: 05377
Capacity: 250GB
Main Chip #: 100347304
Smooth Chip #: 100317176

Replacement PCB Stats
Model: ST3200826AS
P/N: 9Y7389-301
Firmware: 3.02
Site Code: AMK
Date Code: 05000 to 05470
Capacity: 200GB
Main Chip #: 100347304
Smoth Chip #: 100317176

I have included photos of Original PCB and Replacement PCB with transfered firmware.
Also included a download link Audio Sound (size is only 46k) of how the drive sounds when powered on.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zjwrxlwv48lhrfp/HDD.mp3 (size 46k)

Anything else i missed out please let me know.

Thank You

Hi,

What chip did they transfered to transfer the firmware?

Thanks for reply,
I'm not sure how they did firmware transfer. I'll shoot off an email now and ask what they did and get back to you.

Cheers.

Ok.
That's better, so it's easier to understand the situation.

Okay just got email back and he said the Rom Chip was replaced.

thanks

As far as a PCB replacement is concerned and given the info from the 2 PCBs, I would imagine that if the ROM was swapped correctly, and if the PCB was the only fault, then it should have worked. PCB looks like a match.

I've never heard that sound before

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Data Recovery Cape Town

I notice that a PCB screw is missing near the motor connector, maybe the PCB isn't connecting properly to the HDA.

Put the missing screw(s) back

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If the screw doesn't help, you might have some other issue that has to be checked via terminal.

oh i lost couple screws. took some from an old har drive but alas same problem.

the sound the drive is making is really unusual. like its half spinning up over and over again maybe.

any other ideas so if i need profesional help i can get enough info as possible to get estimated quote.

thanks

There's not much ideas without checking it correctly by a pro.
One of the main issues with data recovery is to able to diagnose it correctly.

Like dmarques said, perhaps you should post the terminal output to give a better picture of what is actually going on in there.
You can look here for info on how to connect via terminal.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807- ... 0011-hdds/ (obviously don't do the solution, just read the part on how to connect to terminal)

If the data is high priority then rather take it to a pro, rather than fiddle and possibly make the situation worse.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

okay thanks I've ordered the parts i need online but won't receive til next week since its friday tomorrow and there no postal deliverys on weekends here.

Once I get it working. Can you point me into direction of what I need to do next to help diagnose the problem.
Preferably a guide as i know its very risky playing around with commands.

Once you have it, make sure you connect it up correctly. There's lots of info on the web/forum on how to do this. Then when you power up the drive it will output some data through the terminal for you to see. Below is a random example from a Seagate drive.
Once you have got the terminal output, post it here.

Reset
4096k x 32 DRAM
GALAXY - 1_Disk S-6D 09-22-06_15:48

Buzz HM SFI
!
(P)PATA Reset
Master
AT Er 00 Nwt Er 43 RdWr 1ce8d.03.0180
ATA St 50 Er 01 Op 00 0,0000/0/00,00 01 00
Niwot: 97f29ff7 b6 97f29ff7.3.640 0000 005f 0000 0000
DiskAccess ReadSector EC=43 at 01ce8d.03.0180

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

Hi, Sorry taken so long to reply been really busy.

Interface task reset
4096k x 16 buffer detected
TONKA - 1_Disk S.00 01-25-05 16:19

Buzz - %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%Error R
eading Boot Adaptives

F>


any idea what that means?

Yes , bad news.

Firmware issues
Need professional help it seems

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what will a professional need to do so i can get a estimated quote.

thanks.

Leave the problem to the professional who will do the diagnose and decide what to do. Otherwise you are falling in the same error you made from the beginning.

I can tell you what I do : in this kind of case I do not ever consider the original PCB or if I have the feeling that PCB is non native, I assume "THERE IS NO PCB" or even ask not to send me the PCB , just the bare drive without PCB. Then it's my turn.

NOTE : In this story I noticed too many things that don't add up, anyway, and to me, NOW, the REAL problems of the drive are VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY different. .

Umm there is no story what ive said is as much detail as i can offer.

pcb damaged. donar pcb gotten replaced rom chips.

drive now says

Interface task reset
4096k x 16 buffer detected
TONKA - 1_Disk S.00 01-25-05 16:19

Buzz - %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%Error R
eading Boot Adaptives

end of story.

Then get a real diagnose assuming you have NO PCB . Most probably it won't be for free but you'll know what's going on with the drive.

End of story.