I've had an old PC in the closet for a while, and a week or so ago I went to retrieve it to look for some files I left on there. The PC started, gave me a voltage warning, ran for a minute or two, blue-screen'd, and then went dead. The HDD stopped spinning, and never started again, also I heard maybe one click or so before the HDD went dead.

I figured I would try swapping out the PCB as I've heard that can be successful, although not to expect too much. I found a nearly identical drive on Ebay, these are the first set of numbers on the PCB sticker:

Old PCB - 2061 - 001102 - 300 EA
New PCB - 2061 - 001102 - 301 - D

After the swap, the old drive spun up again...but with a rhythmic clicking going on. It will do that, spin down after a while, and repeat. It is also not recognized in the BIOS at all. I assume the PCB numbers are not close enough...however if there is something else I can do that would be great. The data on the HDD isn't really important enough to warrant a shop looking at it, so I figure if I can get away with under $100 to fix it, that would be a good lesson.

One thing search here on TVS and test your old PCB board. Two problem is that your motor controler chip is bad and this could of burned your preamp on your HDD. You can start off simple and looks up TVS and thest it and see if one is bad on your origianl PCB. If yes cut it off. If no then on the other PCB you have to move over ROM to this board to make it work with the drive.

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Iorana Haraharaini

If you upload a photo of your board, of us will help you identify the components.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Here you are. Sorry about the image quality, my camera is old and dislikes using macro mode. Also, about testing the diode...I can simply use the diode setting on a multimeter correct (when I locate which diode to test that is)?

I attempted attaching a picture, however it says that it needs a moderator's approval or some such thing. So once that is taken care of, hopefully we can proceed.

Unfortunately, your board does not have any TVS diodes.

There is a location at D3 which appears to be reserved for a 5V TVS diode, but it is unpopulated.

As for the "ROM", that's the large 40-pin rectangular component at U2, in the bottom right corner. Whether this chip, or its contents, needs to be transferred to your donor is for others to tell you. I'm not a DR guy.

BTW, there appears to be no visible damage to your motor controller chip at U1, in the bottom left corner.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

You, most definitely, need to move the U2 chip. You may have a board from a similar model of drive, but the head maps are likely completely different, thus why the drive clicks like mad when you swap the PCB.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Forgive me for being naive, but how would I go about moving the chip? Is this a DIY job, or would I need a recovery service?

Moving the chip amounts to a board repair, not a data recovery. I haven't looked around in my next of the woods, by you will need to find somebody who would be willing to do PCB rework at a reasonable cost.

Google turns up a lot of hits:
http://www.google.com/search?q=pcb+rework+service

Otherwise some board suppliers offer a ROM transfer service ranging from free to US$20.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I have 3 WD800JB 00JJC0 drives

Drive 1 won't read or write (the owner would really like to recover all or part of this drive)
Drive 2 has intermittent read/write issues (this drive was recovered and restored to a new drive)
Drive 3 still works

- both D1 and D2 sound normal when they are powered up: platter is spun up and it sounds like the heads are going through their calibration steps.

- there is no sign of physical damage to either D1 or D2 controller boards

- site review suggests U12 may require changing or reprogramming for board swapping ... as all of these drives were purchased at the same time and have the same indentification labels I expected they should be close to being the same

- site review suggests there could be clicking noises within a defective drive ... this doesn't happen to either drive (I have seen this particular type of failure before and it is very distinctive)

- attempted to use SPINWRITE on D1 it just sat on the first sector forever ... moved to a random sector but that made no difference ... first suspicion is that this is a head failure

- removed D1 and configured it as an external drive ... the bios recognizes that there is a drive and that it is a WD800 but Windows won't build a Folder Tree or assign a drive for it

- tested D1 with both D2 and D3 controller boards with no change

- tested D3 with D1's controller board and D3 still works ... while this doesn't prove that all board swaps can be successful without changing U12, I think it does suggest that this isn't always required

- I opened/sacraficed D2 to determine what might be involved in doing a hardware swap ... there is only one platter in this drive with 2 heads; top and bottom ... if one were to open this in a clean room, I think the issue would be how to remove the platter without adversely affecting the heads ... further there was some discussion that WD might be using part of the disk to store its firmware ... if this is the case, the hardware may actually not be the issue for these drives ... specifically there was no physical evidence of platter deterioration or head wear inside D2 ... the internal parts and cables all looked pristine.

I have had 2 quotes for Clean room recovery ranging from $400-$2000 which seems steep ... why WD or any other manufacturer couldn't offer this service (being they would have all the tools) at a reasonable price is beyond me. Obviously not all drives can be restored but in this case I expect this drive could be easily resolved by WD.

D1 contains pictures of relief worker efforts in Haiti from early 2012 which apparently were not backed up ... so the loss of this drive is kind of sad.

did SITE REVIEW suggest also to get the drives properly diagnosed instead of "guessing" / "believing" ?

did SITE REVIEW made you aware of the risks involved in DIY ?

So said....

I appreciate there are all kinds of DIYers out there ... I wouldn't call myself an expert but I have been working with this stuff since PAPER TAPE ... both Maintenance and design ... so ... Please don't go DISSING me for trying ... Nuff Said!!!

Anyway ... went back to square one and found WD has a utility called LifeGuard ... ran this in complete update mode and it has restored the drive well enough for me to make an image backup ... I am happy ... kudo's to WD for supplying this utility ... never occurred to me to look on their site for a diag tool.

Hope this is usefull to others having similar issues.

Then the drive was not defective at all. Period.

I know it's been a long while since I posted last...however I finally got the funds to attempt salvaging the drive again. Does anyone have any recommendations on a known good--possibly global--PCB repair service? I've tried googling and came up with a lot of links, however I'm not sure I'd trust my data with half of them.

There may be additional faults with the drive. Never know. Has to be tested properly.
So sending the drive for "PCB Repair" may not do the trick. Especially, like you said in the wrong hands.

Another thing to keep in mind, most reputable places do not fix drives, but rather get them to work temporarily, extract the data to a new healthy media and return to you. So, fixing and recovering seem like the same thing, but they are not. Different services. So, you may want to clearly decide what service you are looking for.

Best wishes.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I do not intend to use the drive after getting the files off, however I do not want to pay thousands to get said files. It seems like moving chips is a bit more than a simple solder job, and someone earlier mentioned ROM transfer service, and I'm not sure where exactly to look for that.

I guess I'll keep googling, thanks for the help.

Indeed, ROM swap is something to try, but for this PCB type is a rather difficult solder without experience and confidence in soldering technique.

Also use the phone, chat, etc. Websites do not always tell the whole story.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

See if this helps - all-those-folks-with-burned-pcbs-look-here-t24519.html

@Gotejjeken

These guys are trustworthy.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts