ST500DM002 ROM Swap?

[vsync68]

Owner was replacing his older Lenovo all-in-one PC with a small USFF, but he had old/important data on that mechanical hard drive. He didn't want to keep the other PC powered on to organize/copy the files, so I told him he could just put it into a USB dock and at least be able to access things he might need (accounting things, etc.) without taking a bunch of time to go through his decade+ of files (and his desktop was essentially wall-to-wall icons). So one day when his new PC showed up, he said he powered down his PC and then put the hard drive in a dock, but he told me it didn't power on. So I went and took a look, but nothing seemed to happen at all, no spin up or anything. I tried the hard drive in other docks/PCs but to no avail, and other mechanical drives we have here power on and spin up no problem in all of the docks.

Not entirely sure how his power down went, or how he unhooked it all, or if the PSU gasped at life and something happened. Pretty sure he also doesn't use a surge protector, which doesn't help matters. Hopefully this experience helps him make some changes.

Anyways, I went through some of the old storage rooms and went through some of the old PCs and found one had a hard drive that was the same model, but different origin and firmware, and both PCBs are REV C. From quick research, I know PCB swaps aren't really a thing, and I took a multimeter and the red box on the original, those don't have continuity whereas they do on the spare. I believe the pink circle is the ROM for these Seagate drives? So would it just be a matter of swapping the original ROM to the spare, and putting the spare PCB back on the original? Does the firmware play a role and/or do I need to find a donor board?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[fzabkar]

Check the TVS diodes (QA and LEK).

TVS Diode FAQ:

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=86

[IAitaliassistance]

Generally speaking, you can replace the ROM; if the PCB has the same serial number, the revision matters less, but if the power surge has caused the heads' preamp to malfunction, then there's little you can do other than contact a professional laboratory.