WD 3TB With A Failed Motor...Anyone Ever Seen One?

[gtd4242]

WD30EZRS 3TB out of a MyBook. The drive worked fine one day, and then it just had a red light come on and would not power up. Initially it seemed like it might be a PCB issue. Nothing could be heard at all unless you held the drive right to your ear. Then you could tell something was happening. The drive had a VERY faint tick tick tick...brief pause...tick tick tick. It didn't sound like the heads were seized...it was just really odd. The sound was almost unnoticeable unless the drive was right up to your ear.

I transferred the rom and swapped PCB's, but nothing changed. I put the original PCB onto a donor drive and that drive worked great, so it definitely was not a PCB issue. I then put the PCB off the donor with it's non-native rom and tried that...still the same faint ticking sound. So I know it wasn't the rom. I opened the drive just to confirm the heads weren't seized and to check the spindle. Heads looked great, and the spindle rotated freely.

So I have to assume something in the actual motor has failed. I was just curious if anyone else has seen anything like this in these drives? They appear to be a nightmare to swap platters on.

[pcimage]

More likely preamp IMHO, rather than motor.

Try some new heads in it

[fzabkar]

More likely preamp IMHO, rather than motor.

Try some new heads in it :-)

If the drive is producing a faint "tick tick tick" sound, then surely this would discount the preamp?

[fzabkar]

So I have to assume something in the actual motor has failed.

Test the resistances between each pair of motor terminals. The phase-to-common resistances should be half the phase-to-phase resistances.

If you isolate the motor terminals, is the drive silent?

[data-medics]

More likely preamp IMHO, rather than motor.

Try some new heads in it

If the drive is producing a faint "tick tick tick" sound, then surely this would discount the preamp?

Not nescessarially, I've see times where WD drives would just slightly move the motor a few ticks when there was a shorted read/write head. Seems that some of them test the heads and interrupt startup right when the motor is about to start spinning. Easy way to tell is just block the preamp with paper and see if the motor then spins up.

In any event it's unlikely an issue with the motor, more likely either preamp, stuck heads (which you ruled out), or bad PCB (which you also ruled out). I don't think I've ever seen a WD this new with a bad motor. Not saying it doesn't ever happen, but I've never seen it yet.

[fzabkar]

More likely preamp IMHO, rather than motor.

Try some new heads in it :-)

If the drive is producing a faint "tick tick tick" sound, then surely this would discount the preamp?

Not nescessarially, I've see times where WD drives would just slightly move the motor a few ticks when there was a shorted read/write head. Seems that some of them test the heads and interrupt startup right when the motor is about to start spinning. Easy way to tell is just block the preamp with paper and see if the motor then spins up.

The drive had a VERY faint tick tick tick...brief pause...tick tick tick.

Why would the drive pause and try again?

[pcimage]

I have heard it on Zeus (I think it was, or maybe Kermit) drives before, quiet tick(s) when power applied and it's been down to the heads assembly.

Had one case a while ago from New Zealand where a raid server had a power surge and it cooked all preamps (or shorted something in the heads assembly, I didn't care which, all I was interested in getting the data!) causing none to spin up, just made ticking noises. Changed heads assembly in all 4 drives (using one set of donor heads for all 4 as I remember) and recovered data in full.

But yes, agree. Check the motor by blocking the heads from the PCB with card or whatever.

As data-medics says, I have never seen a bad (as opposed to siezed) motor in a modern WD drive but not saying it doesn't happen.

Closest I remember was a Hawk drive that had somehow got the motor wires shorted underneath (under the glue) and it was making some strange noises. I picked away the glue and separated the offending wires and all was good

[gtd4242]

Nice call on the preamp. That's it. Isolated the heads and the motor spins up just fine. Thanks a ton!

[data-medics]

More likely preamp IMHO, rather than motor.

Try some new heads in it

If the drive is producing a faint "tick tick tick" sound, then surely this would discount the preamp?

Not nescessarially, I've see times where WD drives would just slightly move the motor a few ticks when there was a shorted read/write head. Seems that some of them test the heads and interrupt startup right when the motor is about to start spinning. Easy way to tell is just block the preamp with paper and see if the motor then spins up.

The drive had a VERY faint tick tick tick...brief pause...tick tick tick.

Why would the drive pause and try again?

I think that's a question for the engineers at WD to answer. All I know is, sometimes it does this.

Edit: Hey! Finally made my 1000th post. I got unbanned just in time

[northwind]

I have heard it on Zeus (I think it was, or maybe Kermit) drives before, quiet tick(s) when power applied and it's been down to the heads assembly.

Agree, I've seen this many times.

As data-medics says, I have never seen a bad (as opposed to siezed) motor in a modern WD drive but not saying it doesn't happen.

We've seen SadleG6 and Dragon with bad motor. But it's very very rare.