Hi all,

first, kudos to all of you for providing such a helpfull forum!

While trying to swap my HDD from my HTPC to PC my WD25EZRX 2.5 GiB drive stayed quiet after powering it on, then I smelled the funky magic smoke
Turns out the SATA cable had a loose contact or two, now its chopped up.. that will show him!

After removing the PCB it was obvious that the SMOOTH L7251 Motor Controller was grilled (interestingly, a search on google shows they all burn up in the same patterns).
Some Diodes (D1, D3) also turned into 0 Ohm resistors (I measured them in circuit).

Here some data:
Motor Controller (U1): SMOOTH L7251 3.1
PCB: REV A 2060-771698-004
Sticker on PCB: 2061-771698-904 AA XC BED1 044L 2 0001480 1481
EPROM/Flash (U12): Pm25LD020
D1: 530L
D3: 6AE 15A M

Found an old WD HD that has the Motor Controller on it, however, even though I own an cheap hot air station and a pretty good soldering station (analog JCB, even have a hollow tip laying around) I don't feel crazy enough to try to desolder and resolder a TQFP64 for the first time..

If you want more info or pics of the mess, please just let me know.

So, here are my questions..
Option 1 - DYI: If I find an old PCB of that HD, and just swap the EEPROM. I'd feel confident enough to swap the EPROM/Flash (8-pin TSSOP seems very doable for me), is there anything else I should watch out for?

Option 2 - Have a Pro do it: I live in germany, I'd prefer not to ship the PCB accross continets and then have it sent back (shipping costs), does anyone know an affordable service in Germany or EU?

I might seem like I am trying to be cheap, but I am out of work since 2 weeks, the HDD only contains movies (2.1 GiB) and nothing really important, so I am looking for a cheap route, sorry.
I might have missed some options on the web, this just happened today, still gathering info.

Thanks in advance,

maki

Would this PCB be suitable if I changed the EPROM/Flash?

http://www.ebay.de/itm/PCB-board-for-We ... 3a94facf07

The DCM on mine is HARCHV2CA
The DCM on the ebay offer is HBRCHT2ABB

Ok, I ordered this one:
http://www.onepcbsolution.com/529285265wd.html

Seems to be the closest match and also the cheapest one I could find, let's see.

ISTM that you should be OK with that PCB. My only concern is whether the preamp survived. The fact that D3 is shorted suggests that the drive suffered an overvoltage on the +5V input.

Best of luck.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks fzabkar!

Luckily I wouldn't be losing anything of importance, so I can be reckless and try it myself.

Well if the PreAmp was fried, I guess its game over, in a few days I will know more.

From what I've read online so far openening a WD High Density drive like mine is a big NONO, so changing the PreAmp is out of question, I would never be able to put it back together into a working state, even most Proffessionals seem to have big troubles with that.

Out of interest, how likely is it that the Flash took damage?
Is there an easy way to find out the Firmware version on it? (Like reading labels, S/N number etc.)

Measure the resistance between its Vcc and Ground pins (8 and 4).

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks again!

Its not shortened, around 324 kOhm, should be fine then