Samsung HD103SJ

[trinsweep]

Hi All
I have a Samsung HD103SJ drive that failed.
HDD P/N: HD103SJ/D
Rev. A
FW: 1AJ10001

The drive is less than a year old. It spins up for a few seconds when power is supplied and then sounds like it spins down. No unusual noises.
Anyone have this drive and willing to sell?

[hddguy]

What would you do with a replacement HDD?

From your brief description of the symptoms I would guess you have problems with the Service Area, and without specialist equipment you will not be able to solve this yourself.

[student]

Like you I have a failed Samsung HD103SJ.
Mine makes a couple of clicks but is not recognised by the BIOS.
Can I do anything to get data off it by myself?

[pcimage]

Like you I have a failed Samsung HD103SJ.
Mine makes a couple of clicks but is not recognised by the BIOS.
Can I do anything to get data off it by myself?

Not really, no.

If it was dead then you could have tried some PCB tricks, and if it was seen by the BIOS but couldn't access the data then there are other things to try.

But the fact that yours spins up, clicks and is not seen by the BIOS leads me to believe the problem is either firmware or heads related. Neither of which are DIY jobs.

If you need the data then you need pro assistance, if you don't care about the data then RMA the drive or bin it.

[student]

pcimage, thank you.

I have a few donor drives and was considering a head swap.

I've seen on the web (and you confirm this) that Samsung drives make two clicks for two reasons:
1. Failed pre-amp (or other head problem)
2. Bad SA

I was wondering whether there was a way to tell which it was.
Then, if it's a bad SA and I have a donor with the same firmware is it possible to put the drive into safe mode and copy the firmware from the good donor to the sick one? I realise that bad sector data will be wrong but I only need a small amount of data from the disk - the rest was successfully backed up.

If it's a dead head then I will try a head swap.

I don't expect this to be easy and I have a couple of drives to practice on.

[pcimage]

Sorry to say that you will zero chance of sort out a FW problem without the specialist equipment and training, which will cost you 50x more than to have it done properly.

A head swap might give you a slightly better chance, 0.1% is better than zero.

Not being condasending but if the data is worth anything to you then don't even consider DIY on this drive. Of course if the data is worthless then please go ahead and tinker!

[trinsweep]

Hi PCImage
First off, I readily admit to being a novice in this field!

The drive is not even a year old. There was no physical trauma to it (PC didn't topple, no one smacked it or bumped it. Plus it is bloody heavy!). PC runs off an APC UPS, so power fluctuations were not an issue, especially since no one noticed anything odd with lights or UPS units beeping/clicking.
If power is supplied to the drive, it sounds normal as it spins up, there are a couple seeking/reading sounds (nothing odd about the sounds) after the drive has reached its speed, and then it spins down. The whole process takes roughly about 5 seconds.

So in my novice opinion, it just seemed like it was the PCB. Everything sounds mechanically fine.
But from my quick reading here, the SA area is essentially code that exists on the PCB, or have I misunderstood? In which case if I could locate a healthy matching PCB, I should regain access to the data... right???
Kind of a dead issue now. There was a slight bit of old data that was saved. They are going to just rebuild the info.

But it is f'ing scary that a modern hard drive could fail so catastrophically, so quickly and with no warning signs.

[trinsweep]

Actually now re-reading the SA bit and realizing that it involves part of the HDD.