Hello all,

This is my first time here and I've got a hard drive that I'm trying to figure out whats wrong. I've been doing some research and I think I've narrowed down what the problem is. However, I'm not 100% positive and would like the input from others.

The hard drive does turn on and there are no mechanical noises that would make me think the platters are damaged or that the arm is causing any issues. The hard drive is recognized by my laptop when in an external enclosure but i cannot access the drive.

When inspecting the PCB i noticed that the head contacts look to be burnt. i'm not 100% sure since I don't know if they should look like this or not. Part of me thinks that cleaning it might help, or I'm wondering if I should just pick up a new board (found one matching the board I have now).

Thanks for the advice.
Marinor

Recognized correctly ?
Model and Capacity ?


PCB fault unlikely,(Clean the contacts though)

If you want the data from the drive, you will have to find a way to connect the drive directly to the IDE port of a PC(rather than the USB enclosure) and check if its detecting properly in the BIOS.
Then Clone the drive to another working good drive of larger capacity and recover the data from the drive using recovery tools.

DIY has its risks, and not advised if data is very important.
At this stage, pro recovery shouldn't cost you much.