Hello, I didn't know where else to go to find the best people who knew about this sort of thing so here I am.

My dilemma is that I had a pcb board on a hard drive start smoking, you know, the one with 15 years of pictures on it. I pulled it out and removed the board to find a burnt out chip. I did the quintessential moron thing and went to Ebay, and bought a board with the same model number. I put it on, plugged it back in to my computer and it wouldn't spin. In my disgust, I freaked out and threw away the old pcb. A few days later, after the trash had been picked up of course, I take the drive to my local pc repair shop, pay a $65 fee and have them look at it. They tell me they couldn't retrieve data from it, so for another $120 they tell me they will try a "proprietary software" method to retrieve the data. That doesn't work, so the guy says I have two options from here. They can send it to a hard drive repair guy in Atlanta and see if he can fix it, or send it to some lab in California where they will disassemble the disk and recover the data from the platters which he warns would likely be a very expensive process.

I choose the option of sending the drive to Atlanta since its only costing me $40 shipping. He calls back a few minutes later saying that his repair guy wants the old pcb since he needs the ROM chip off of it. Obviously, I tell him that out of ignorance I threw it away, and he says they will see what they can do.

So after my long drawn out story, I am just curious if I am wasting money here. Without the old pcb ROM is the drive essentially unrepairable? I've spent several hours reading posts about this topic on this site and others, but I can't seem to find anything that provides the answer to my specific problem. I've read that ROM can be re-programmed and then other places I've read that even in the event that its re-programmed the data on the disk still won't be accessible.

The pictures are obviously very very important to me and my wife, but I don't know if they are thousands of dollars worth of important. I just don't want to be spinning my wheels while money is falling out of my wallet.

Any information, knowledge, or advice anyone can give to my situation would be MOST appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time.

Oh and by the way, the drive is a WD Blue 500GB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD5000AAKX - OEM that I bought in 2012.

Also I apologize if this is the wrong section to post this in, if so, please feel free to move it to the proper area.

What is the full model number including the letters/numbers after the dash? It should be something like WD500AAKX-25LBA0 (just an example).

Those numbers at the end actually tell us more than the first part.

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

Hi !

ROM can be rebuild on your drive. Maybe your "sepcialist" is not that good

The problem is that the drive with the new PCB doesn't spin, so most likely pre-amp is dead nd drive needs head stack replacement anyway ...

Do not trust someone that tells you that they can't recover the data on WD drive is ROM is gone.

This is only a problem with some drives as toshiba and f3 arch seagate and even so can be recoeverd if you pay $$$$.

On WD it's EASY and any decent data recovery pro should be able to do so without any problem, but again if you drive didn't spin with the new PCB you have bigger problems then the missing ROM ...

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Ok, so you drive is an WD5000AAKX.

On the ROM there is information that is specific to the drive - adaptives - and that information is necessary to acecss the user data.

But on the platters of your drive there is also a copy (modules) of that data and it can be used to create again the missing ROM.

The problem is that your drive with a known good compatible PCB should SPIN UP and should allow access to SA (firmware on platters).

Now if the drive doesn't spin with the new PCB and assuming the new PCB is from a drive of the same model and it's WORKING (new pcb is not dead as well) that will leave the problem with the pre-amp (inside the drive) that requires clean room work (hepa 100) or in other words the entire head stack have to be replaced and the cost of that will be arround $1500 - $3000 USD.

If the problem is JUST THE MISSING PCB but the head stack is still ok a new compatible PCB will make the drive to spin. From there you can read firmware with special tools like expensive pc-3000 or free SeDiv DEMO or cheap WDMarvell and you can use modules on the platter to create the missing ROM :

This can be done by hand :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=761

Or can be done with one click with specialized firmware tools :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=871

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=84

In any case drive have to be spinning and if it's not then the problem that is preventing the drive from spinning have to be sorted out first.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Agree.

Lost original PCB is not the end of the world on this model, unlike new Seagate drives amongst others.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Thank you very much for your response. I will call the shop and ask if they were able to get the drive to spin. I should have asked when I talked to him earlier, but given my ignorance about HDD hardware I just didn't know to ask. At least if I know they were able to get it to spin then the pre-amp isn't the problem, and has a chance to be fixed.

If Spins and clicks the pre-amp/heads might be damaged as well.

The drive have to spin without any un-usual clicking noises and even so there can be head/firmware issues.

At any rate ANY DECENT DATA RECOVERY FIRM and i'm not talking about a regular computer shop should be able to recover the data EVEN IF THE PRE-AMP/HEADS are damaged (but of course it will be more expensinve).

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

So to update on this, I contacted the guy at the shop yesterday and he told he his "guy" in Atlanta said it wasn't possible to repair the drive without the ROM from the old board. Obviously from what you guys have said here and from even my own modest amount of research I know this to be incorrect. I feel like I've been "had" after spending what now totals almost $400.

I'm out of town until next Friday, but is there anyone that you guys recommend I can send this drive to that's trustworthy and won't gouge me out of even more money?

Well,
Contact a good DR tech from hddguru local to your place .If you were in india i would have done this for approx 300 dollars even if it needed a head swap if HSA was burned .ROM regeneration in WDC is not that hard .Many other techniques like changing rom and overlay modules also works if you know how to handle it .

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

I think that the problem with your drive is not just NOT the lost ROM...

The "expert" guys can't make the drive to spin because of damaged/shorted pre-amp.

This is my bet based on the fact that the drive didn't spin with the new PCB (assuming the PCB was good) with it's ROM (drive would have to spin and access to SA should be possible even with wrong adaptives).

So at this point there is a big chance that the drive needs "clean room service" and I will not offer my help on this one. If it were just a ROM adaptation (if the drive were to spin ok with the new PCB but access to the user data were impossible due to wrong adaptives on ROM) i could help you out for a symbolic fee + shipping to Portugal - Europe but as i'm almost certain that head swap will be required that will excalate the price and worldwide reputable data recovery firms will charge something that starts at $600 for this sort of service ...

Your best option is to ask arround and see if someone is able to do it for a reasonable price and if you agree have the drive shipped to that person ...

Regards and good luck.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Isn't Jon from Datasavers in Atlanta? He's definitely one of the best, so I'm 99% sure it wasn't him who worked on this.

Yep good advice! Send it to Jon. I understand his company is an approved WD partner.

Interesting !!!! I did made a *SMALL* mistake because I mainly deal with very old IDE drives (i'm specializing myself on old drives) and it have been a while now since i've recovered from those WD drives by ROM swapping/Rebuilding.

As a matter of fact one of the last cases that I've done in person (with the drive in my possession) of an WD ROYL ROM reconstruction (with the exception of course of the help that i provide on forums) was more than one year ago :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=915

Nowadays i mainle do HRT studies with older drives, even older then WD Marvell arch so I've replyed to you in a hurry and missed one important detail.

IF your old PCB had external ROM chip then most likely THERE IS NO ROM BACKUP on SA. I don't know if this will apply to all "modern" WD ROYL drives with external ROM but i'm under the impression that only drives with embeded ROM on MCU will have a copy of ROM and ROM modules on SA. For drives with external ROM chip the modules on SA with the ROM copy will be empty with a "NOT INIT" text string.
So as a matter of fact it might not be as easy to *regen* the ROM as it would be on a PCB without ROM (ROM embeded on MCU) but of course, there are other tricks that can be used to get access to the data.

Just today i've replyed and concluded this case here at the forum; older WD drive but same problem, PCB with external ROM was gone :

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32380

On this one a "SMART HOT SWAP" using the "translator" from the original drive was enought to get the data extracted out of the drive. On your case it might be necessary to move more then just the translator module (module 31) but should still be reasonable easy for the majority of the data recovery professionals.

Other options might be to check the version of module 11 - permanent overlay and get a matching ROM and then patch it with the adaptives of your drive. Or there is some professionals doing the other way arround, like writting ROM + Permanent Overlay from a compatible drive and patching the ROM with the adaptives, etc.

I'm very confident that any reasonable decent data recovery professional can retrieve the data out of your drive even if the original PCB had a ROM chip and that PCB and ROM chip is now gone.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

International postage round trip isnt too bad! In Atlanta Jon does good work.

Actually there are some WD families which don't have ROM modules in SA, mostly on USB models. The modules just say "NOT_INIT" and are blank. However it isn't the ones without an external ROM. And even then if you can find enough ROM codes to try, you'll likely find one that works.

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

Thank you for all the replies. I currently live in Memphis. Is there anyone you guys would recommend around this area of the US that could possibly help with my situation? If Datasavers is the best option though, I'd gladly send it there.

Another update on this. I picked up the drive and got a second opinion from another data recovery firm here in Memphis. They said the drive spins and they can fix it, but quoted me $500 to repair. They said the ROM could be restored from the SA on the platters just like you guys said.

Is that a fair price for that kind of work? Seems extremely expensive for what essentially is a relatively simple procedure.

IMHO it is a reasonable price for the work (perhaps a little on the high side). You have to remember that data recovery companies use a lot of expensive equipment in order to recover data from hard drives. Recovering the ROM is not as simple as a procedure as you might think. The equipment alone to do this type of work (PC-30000 is about $7,500. You are also paying for the time and experience of the engineer responsible for the job. We take data recovery (and protecting your data while doing it) very seriously and it does come at a price. Hope that helps.

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

+1

than DIY

Any update on this ?
Did you manage to get your data back ?
Regards.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.