I´ve got a faulty Toshiba MK3265GSX HDD2H83 320 GB 2,5" SATA notebook drive.

When I put the drive in an external SATA adaptor, the spindle is running.
Sometimes the PC even don´t boot up with this disc as a second drive attached.
I must attach the drive later. The drive is occassionaly not found within XP and if it was found after a long time of waiting I can see only empty partitions. I´m not able to run any diagnostic program. If I try this, the PC "looses" the drive and can´t see it anymore

Can anyone give me an advice for a good fault check strategy?
I already checked the PCB visually, but there is no physical damage to be seen. Is it a good idea to change the PCB and the ROM?

Thanks,
Luxman

Total waste of time to change the PCB, it is not faulty,

Either you have media issues (bad sectors) and/or suspect head(s)

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Thanks.
Is there anything I can try at this point without opening up the disc?
I´m not a recovery pro.

Unfortunately NO.

Even with opening the disk you can't do anything. (and its not neccessary in my opinion)

Dobre

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