Hi Everyone,
It seems couple people have had this issue before. MY Samsung HM100UI/UZ4 is not spinning. it was part of an external hard drive. I've opened it up to test it as internal hdd but did not work either.
here are some pics. there is an obvious burn out at the PCB connector and i probably should replace the PCB. however if you look at it and let me know if thats gona fix.

Thanks
Axar

Doesn't look like a "burn" at the PCB connection, just a little corroded.

Was this drive made about October 2010 by any chance?

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Yes, You are right. IS that a bad thing?

The date code on the sticker on the underside of the PCB appears to be "20101015" which would suggest October 15, 2010.

Also, the date codes on the SDRAM and MCU are 1028 and 1036, ie weeks 28 and 36 of 2010.

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If you put your ear against the cover, can you hear the drive trying to spin up? If so, then you may have a stiction fault or a seized spindle bearing.

As for the "burn" marks, you can shine them up with a soft white pencil eraser. Just don't rub too hard.

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Well spotted!

There does appear to be a bad batch of these drives from around that date, which we suspect that the actual ROM chip appears to degrade and/or corrupt.

If you check the startup messages via a serial terminal connection, it will display a message similar to "ROM unpack failure" and the drive will not spin up.

We have a solution to this, but it requires specialist tools and knowledge to implement.

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thanks for the reply guys.

The hard drive makes no attempt to turn on. Dead quiet. It is October 2010 drive. Are there any diagnostic methods i can perform to find out?
I can connect my hdd to a computer through usb. Can i perform any diagnostics there?

I can help you measure the onboard power supplies. If you don't have a digital multimeter, you could obtain one for about US$5.

There are two 4R7 coils near the TLS2505 motor controller IC. Measure their voltages. You could use the PCB screw holes as your ground reference.

These voltages will be the Vcore and Vio supplies for the Marvell MCU and SDRAM and Winbond flash memory. According to the SDRAM datasheet, the Vio supply will probably be +2.5V. I suspect that Vcore would be around +1.2V.

M13S2561616A-5T, ESMT, DDR SDRAM, 64Mbit, 1M x 16 Bit x 4 Banks, 2.5V, 200MHz:
http://www.esmt.com.tw/DB/manager/upload/M13S64164A.pdf

If these voltages are OK, then you will probably need a PCB adaptation service. I could try to help you obtain a report from the serial console if you get this far. This would help to confirm pcimage's diagnosis.

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I second that

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Unfortunately yes, it's a bad thing (for you)

A new PCB will not help you in this particular case. Even with "ROM adaptation", because it is almost certainly the actual ROM that has failed, not the PCB itself.

This can be confirmed by a terminal output.

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Great News!
I was able to see my hard drive as usb in my mac. however, it didnt recognize as a hard drive. Not even in disk util

http://imageshack.us/a/img197/9527/ego2.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img72/2861/ego1h.png

i was able to detect the usb but not hdd in my mac. is there a way to diagnose it from here?

A "ROM adaptation" is not the same as a "PCB adaptation".

PCB Repair & Firmware Adaptation Services:
http://www.donordrives.com/services

"Donor Drives offers its customers FREE PCB Services, whether it is a firmware chip swap or adaptation service. These services are often required, when a hard disk drive has experienced a circuit board failure, and simply replacing a faulty circuit board is not making hard drive operational. That happens due to uniqueness of the circuit board ...

Once we receive your hard drive, we will diagnose and identify the exact failure. If repair is possible, you will only be billed for shipping back to you.

In case where a hard drive cannot be fixed (mechanical damage, stuck spindle, bad sectors, firmware bug, etc.) with your permission, we may suggest to forward your hard drive to a data recovery service provider ..."

This suggests to me that, if axar's PCB is repairable or replaceable, then this would be done for the cost of the PCB plus postage. In any case, the fact that the HDD is required would suggest that the ROM might be rebuilt from the SA of the original HDD. A typical example would be WD ROYL drives.

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OK fine. Let him go for it.

I shall leave you to it.

Good luck

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The problem is ROM, which in effect is basically firmware on the PCB. PCimage is right, seen this many times and no amount of PCB or ROM adaption will be any use.

this is getting REALLY annoying.

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+1

Thanks for the reply everyone.

It seems the only choice is to take it to a specialist. However, I would like to know your honest opinion on how much would this cost. It's matter of is the data worth spending 500$ on it; Probably not. Does the data worth about 100$, Yes.

There are many out there with insane costs for recovery and i don't think the data is worth that much. I'm thinking of making a run to the near by recovery guys to see how much they will charge. I Was wondering if you guys point me out on how much should it cost to recover this. There is only about 300Gb max worth of data of which 200Gb is garbage, only about 100Gb maybe worth recovering.

Also maybe something that i can do on my own for low cost worth equipment. Do share.

Thanks again for your input.

p.s. Currency in Canadian dollars.

Hi axar, contact lcoughey.

+1 for lcoughey. You can get your drive evaluated and then decide if it's worth the $ required.

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