Hello

i had a power supply issue and my hard disk stopped working. Western digital would not help. warranty does not help me.

So i was left to try a donor board. i purchased one and decided it was a good idea to try remove the unneeded donor boards rom before removing the important rom on my original damaged board.

The donor boards rom did not want to come off, it appeared stuck on. I used flux and high heat , it did not want to come off at all!. Very worrying. luckily i found this out on the donor board,. so my important board is untouched .

Do WD glue their rom's on these days?

is there a special remover tool for some of these roms? I bought the donor board from china. maybe they glued the rom on so i could not get it off, to find out the donor pcb was defective?

The rom should lift off with ease, right?

I would like to send my pcb to a professional donor board company. they all seem to be in canada and US. I am in the UK.

anyone have any thoughts on this?

thanks

Hello there.

If you want to ship the drive to my older brother in Portugal he can copy the contents of the original ROM on the original pcb to the ROM chip on the donor pcb.

But by the look of things there is a high chance that you already damaged the ROM chip on the donor pcb, so there is a chance that you will need a new pcb.

Please be aware that the drive might have other problems like a damaged pre-amp, and if so a simple pcb replacement will not be suficient.

If you are interested in shipping the pcbs or the drive to Portugal for service at a very reasonable fee, contact me by pm or member "Spildit" at this forum.

Also can you please tell us if the drive spins at all with your damaged board and if the computer powers at all with the damaged drive connected to the computer power supply (without using any usb enclosure) ?

Thanks.

Place your donor board with its ROM on the damaged drive and power it on.

- If the drive clicks several times and make strange clicking noises then there is a big chance that the pre-amp inside the drive is damaged.

- If the drive doesn't spin at all there is a good chance you damaged the donor ROM chip.

- If the drive spins and sounds normaly without strange clicking then there is a good chance that the donor pcb can still be used. Assuming the drive doesn't have any further problem like damaged SA modules or damaged heads, we can copy the Rom content for you without moving the chips.

The price for this service will be 20€ (euros) and INCLUDES the shipping of the pcbs back to you on UK.

Pm me or Spildit if interested.

Regards and good luck.

hello , thank you for your time

I have tried a new pcb from another identical drive and the damaged hard drive span up. it sounded fine.
but windows did not see it.

yes, so therefore Ii bought a donor board. i know a fair bit about soldering, but i am sure the rom on that donor board was glued on it did not want to come off even with flux, heated high. not a nice experience. I will need a new donor board.

so i think a copy of the rom without soldering is needed. just to be sure of a best chance.

unfortunately i had to buy a new drive yesterday so i could continue with my work . so until i get paid i shall have to wait.

i shall keep you in mind , do you have a website?

If you upload a picture of the original PCB, might be someone will advise you for another compatible PCB, Western Digital drives are flexible in adapting PCBs.

_________________
Data Recovery Pakistan

Hello, you may not need to replace the PCB at all if the issue is related to a powersupply. Does the power supply shut off when the drive is connected?

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Hello, thank you all for your replies : )

i shall post a picture tomorrow,
it is a WD black 2tb. 2002FAEX (2060-771624-003)

Unfortunately, it was a case of the molex power extension adaptor being plugged in the wrong way around. cheap weak connector. but definitely users fault. A chip was cooked.

hence no warranty on a black drive (had a 5 years warranty)

I then tried a brand new working PCB from another drive. and installed it into the damaged drive. the drive spun and sounded fine. but windows did not detect.

I therefore purchased a donor pcb, but the donor ROM chip did not want to come off even with flux and very hot air. it must have been glued on. I have therefore not even touched the original PCB with any soldering tools.

So I feel I am in need of a new donor pcb and a copy of the rom, without de-soldering the original rom because i feel WD have done something to prevent transplants.

thanks for your replies : )

Seagate PCBs components are more easy to unsolder then WD PCBs components.
Sometime i had to go up to 430°C for 15/20 seconds to unsolder WD chips.
Time and temperature to unsolder depends from air pressure , type of tip you use and the amount of oxidation present on the pins

_________________
My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

I assume you used a soldering iron. Hot air works so much better; comes off in seconds. You can use bismuth (ChipQuik) to make it easier if using an iron.

_________________
Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

It's possible that you might just have to remove some transistors to make the original PCB work. Much easier than replacing it. And lowers the risk of damaging the ROM chip.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

I don't think so, unless you replace them afterwards, and assuming you have correctly diagnosed the fault.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Although that did occur to me also, I would have thought that everyone involved in data recovery would understand the difference between a diode and a transistor (a diode usually has 2 pins while a transistor usually has 3) so I wondered whether there was something I was missing.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

hello and thank you to everyone who has posted!

here are a few pictures, as promised.

The first picture is of the donor board that I had great trouble removing the ROM from.

There seemed to be glue or something preventing the removal. I tried with great amounts of hot air heat and flux. The ROM would not come off. In the end i had to lift it off with a screw driver. I would not want to use that donor pcb on a hard drive after that de-soldering experience.





And here below is the original pcb that I have not put any soldering tools too. but as you can see there is great damage to one of the chips.





thanks for your help : )

hello

I have posted a response with jpgs. However, a moderator needs to check the pictures first.

thanks again. : )

just sent a PM so you can see the pcb's.

thank you.

Thank you Spildit

That ROM tool looks great. I am glad there is not need to de-solder the rom.

I shall buy a new donor pcb. Then test that it spins the drive up, just to be sure it is working and powers up o.k.
and shall get back to you here asap.

I really appreciate your help.

: )

I think the preamp is dead as well.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

I kindly disagree !
In one of the OP posts there is a mention to the fact that the drive with the donor PCB without the ROM swap would spin and wouldn't click. If that statment is true the chances for the pre-amp to be still operational are very high.

A shorted pre-amp would prevent the drive from even spinning, and a damaged pre-amp would cause the heads to hit the limiter over and over again, because the wouldn't find the servo marks and wouldn't be able to know where they were on the platter, so they would move up they hit the limiter producing a constant clicking sound.

This is what i think.

Not always.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners