HDD:

WD3200AAJS-40VWA0

PCB:

2061-701444-600 AD
PWB 2060-701444-004 REV A (printed on edge of PCB)

Symptoms:

No clicking
Spins up then goes to sleeps
Light stays on solid from power on to sleep
Drive doesn't show up in Disk Utility (OS X 10.7)

What happened:

This was the original drive in my iMAC until one day I powered it up and got a flashing folder with a question mark. I removed the HDD and have not been able to get anything to recognize that the drive exists. My iMAC is up and running, but I would like to get my family photos off of this drive if possible.
I'm live in a rural area and get quite a few power outages per year. I always unplug it after power goes out but unfortunately I may not always be home when it happens or the secondary fuse kicks in before I can unplug it. I'm not sure if any of that plays a roll in what has contributed to the problem, but thought I would share it.

What I've done:

Not much really. I have plugged it into my iMAC via a SATA to USB connector and tried finding it through Disk Utility and Testdisk 6.13, which both came up empty. I removed the PCB and cleaned certain connections with an eraser head.

Question:

Before I get to invested in this, I wanted some opinions on what the problem could be. I am hoping (just like everyone else that comes to this site) that there is an easy DIY fix for this. What are your suggestions on what my next step should be? Is it a PCB issue, possibly the TVS? Any help or direction is appreciated.

Thanks

It's not a TVS problem.

Are you sure that it's not clicking before it spins down? If you put your ear right next to it upon power-up?

It could be a PCB issue, but more likely a heads problem since it is spinning down. If the latter, there is no DIY path for recovery.

Jon

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

my money on the PCB. IMAC has a bad air circulation + the drive is tornado.

Just to keep it interesting, I'll vote that the PCB is damaged and caused head/media damage, requiring both the PCB and the heads to be exchanged.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I'll go with Luke, its more often both problems, than one of them on those drives.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

If the drive is suffering from a "head mimic" problem, then a PCB swap and ROM transfer will be all that is required. The cheapest commercial software tool for doing this appears to be WDR-UDMA or WD HD Pro (US$150).

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.