Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
May 11th, 2011, 18:12
This is my first post and I would like to get into hard drive data recovery more. I am a complete HDD newbie outside of ddrescue and imaging drives that spin up, but when it comes to a drive that won't spin up or has mechanical issues I'm at a loss. I am having trouble getting a western digital drive that will not spin up. I don't what I can really do if the drive doesn't spin up. If anybody has any ideas on what I could do or where to start would be a huge help. The drive I am working with is a
Western Digital WD2000JS-22NCB1
S/N WCANL1457781
200GB SATA
May 11th, 2011, 18:34

Looks like a fried logic board. I have the hardest time finding the exact one with the same firmware. Any ideas where I could get one??
May 11th, 2011, 18:56
If the data is important you should send the drive to a professional for diagnosis/recovery.
Hard drives are extremely complex in nature and without knowledge and special tools you can get in to trouble quickly.
Did the drive die out of no where? Were there any symptoms before the drive failed? Could you explain what happend before it failed?
*(power surge / changing out components / booted up and drive was not detected?)*
Scan the PCB top and bottom and upload it here. At least that way we can take a peek and look for visual damage and help try to identify some components for you. You may see an insulator in between the board and drive - is there any burn or discolorations on that?
Do you have basic knowledge of electronics and troubleshooting circuits?
If the drive does not spin you should lookup TVS Diode here and do your research. The TVS can stop a drive from powering up similar
to a blown fuse.
May 11th, 2011, 19:58
Just as I posted I pulled the PCB board and Pulled back the insulator and There is a huge burn mark on the VCM Controller? I think it is. I am waiting on the mods to approve the post before it shows up. I work at a local computer shop and we normally do not repair this sort of thing, but if it is just the logic board then I would look into replacing it. I know logic boards can be a pain to find the right one that will work.
May 12th, 2011, 12:13
Even if you do replace the PCB, more than likely there other issues at hand. Something caused this board to take a turn for the worst, more than likely internal. So replacing the PCB, you may be investing in some more smoke.
On the other hand, if you did replace the board and it doesn't go up in smoke, there is still propitiatory information on your original PCB specific to that hard drive on a little 8 legged chip.
Being that I said internal, don't go looking inside. Western Digital drives, you can open and you can close, but without special tools the heads will not line up and you will never get that data off yourself and the expensive price of that pro just shot up immensely.
I hope my information provided some incite to your issues.
Best of luck
May 12th, 2011, 20:29
So how would data professionals go about replacing a bad PCB and getting the information off the drive, or are there special tools they use to retrieve the information. Is there anything I could do here at home?? Somebody had to start somewhere to do data recovery
May 13th, 2011, 1:23
PCB replacement wont work directly on to the patient drive
You need to copy the F/W from patient to the donor drive to work or if you have the ROM on it you can replace that.
Else seek professorial help !!!!!!
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