Tree days ago my Samsung HD103SJ 1000GB 3.5” SATA refused to boot and a sound of clicking heads can be heard from it.

Some details:

1) PC is Ups protected and was correctly powered down, no power surge/outage/physical shock or other anomalies occurred.
2) The drive was working correctly with no sign of defect or SMART errors at boot, and past Estool tests were completed successfully even for the entire disk surface.
3) When powered up an hour later, it started producing a clicking noise.
4) I powered the pc down immediately and I was even able to boot Windows 7 again, but it was extremely slow.
5) Samsung Estool can’t complete any of the short test steps, showing LBA0 errors at “write verify”
6) At boot the message “Smart status bad” appeared.
7) The post screen now attempt to recognize it unsuccessfully but no message is shown anymore.
8) No smoke or burn smell was produced and the pcb shows no sign of burnt.
9) I cleaned pcb contacts with a soft pencil eraser without solving the problem.
10) After some testing it stabilized producing this click sound that you can hear from the link below

http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/1 ... 80%9D_Sata

Any help is much appreciated

80 percent internal problem, 20 percent there's another solution but need to see the drive and require dedicated equipment. So if you don't need data just forget it.

Many thanks for the suggestions !

Now the post screen attempt to recognize the hd unsuccessfully permanently but no message is shown anymore, error smart or other

I have found online an identical replacement pcb for a few dollars and I'm going to try it.

Can I try this first without the usual firmware swap or I risk to make some more damage ?


Thank You

Will you purchase the PCB only or whole drive?

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Only the pcb, I have found the exact revision number for few dollars, so it's worth trying it.

I hope the problem is not in the firmware, so I will try the new pcb without swapping the firmware chip first...

In fact the problem is elsewhere.

The revision no. on PCB is not related to the firmware code and also there are a lot of variants of the same FW (if doesn't match with the other part the drive doesn't work).

Good luck.

Sometimes the PCBs are compatible, sometimes not.
I don't believe it is a PCB issue either.
The reason I asked about the whole drive vs. a PCB only purchase is because I would have suggested to perform a test that would have not damaged the bad drive upon further power cycling. But with just PCB, can't do this particular test.

Best wishes

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

You would have suggested to put the pcb of the faulty drive on the new one to see if the problem replicate I suppose...

That it. Plus, if the bad drive's PCB is healthy, then it would have provided some insight about compatibility.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

My only option is to replace to pcb, the other are not economically feasible.

And it's possible an head crash on a drive that was not subject to any physical shock like mine ?

It is the most common physical failure, despite media not being shocked, dropped, etc. in HDDs.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

The drive keeps clicking, but I have not powered it for more than 20 seconds to avoid any possible problems.

Maybe in the audio you can't hear fine details, but I can say that the motors spins normally, and there is no sound of friction between mechanical parts.



I fear that, but I don't understand how heads can fail in the drive was not subject to a physical shock.

Maybe some internal debris produced by mechanical wear ?

If there is ONE or more heads that has become non-functional or weak, this is the exact symptom and :
- There's NOTHING you can do without cleanroom facility
- That drive is multi-heads and multi-platters
- More likely, after swapping headstack, you will need something like a DDI or similar equipment (HW imager) to extract data smoothly.
If there is a firmware problem (another INTERNAL problem) again there's nothing you can do without knowing exactly what to do, specialized equipment and so on.

One thing are expectations, another is reality.

If you want to play, at your own risk, get a similar PCB : if it clicks same way at start, convince yourself that there is an internal failure (= the drive has simply gone tits up because of wear and tear).
If the behaviour is different you can think about it later.

Good luck.

Maybe because things have a FINITE (=limited) life, exactly like humans . More in a healthy way or less, everything has an end. Like a filetr on your car, a battery, a lamp, a window, a door even if you leave it closed or open. SIMPLE.

Sad but true.

I have a serial cable, can this be used to connect to the hd jumpers pins and do something with Hyperterminal ?

Also, putting a jumper to force the sata speed to Sata 150, the motor doesn't spin and the click sound disappears.

If the output of the log includes 'gray err' will this be enough to convince that there is a problem?
P.s. Tested with another pcb regardless of Fw ?

I'm already convinced that there is a serious problem and that it probably involves hd mechanic

The pcb will arrive from China and the shipping process will take some time, so no tests were made with it.

Buona fortuna.
Good luck.

Me ne servirà tanta

I don' have a tll adaptor but the spoiled serial cable below, can I use this ?



Also, I'm looking on Seagate knowledgebase to find jumper information to make the connection for debug, but for this hd there is no data.

This is how pins appear on my drive, I can't find nothing similar even on Google Image