Hi,

I have a customer that dropped a WD portable hard drive while it was on. The hard drive spins up but it's not detectable by an USB external case or by the BIOS. I acquired an identical drive with all of the same drive information, WWN, Date, DCM, LBA, PCB board version. When I swapped the PCB the host drive spins up, gets identified by the OS via USB, but doesn't identify the drive size properly. Oddly enough if I try the "host" PCB on the "donor" drive it also spins up, gets identified, but also shows the improper drive size. I was expecting it to not get recognized as this was the result with the original host drive and host PCB. This tells me there must be a chip on the PCB that stores the drive parameters. Can someone confirm this or steer me in the right direction.

Please see the attached files.

I've done a PCB swap before with a 1TB Seagate drive by swapping an IC chip from one to another and it worked. I just don't know if I need to do the same with this drive. If so, which chip?

Thanks,
Lloyd

Problem is not PCB. Your drive can not read Service Area, which is stored on a platters inside that drive.
I would recommend to take it to data recovery professional before problem becomes bigger, specially if the drive was dropped.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

As it was dropped while on it will most likely have damaged heads & probably some platter damage.
Sorry to say but this is not a DIY fix as you would need a cleanroom, specialist tools & lots of experience swapping heads etc.



Just for info: The U12 is empty which means that the adaptive information is embedded in the U5 chip (the one with the big M on it)


Loki

Loki... Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated.

Lloyd