Hello, I have been tasked with trying to recover data from a WD5000AAKS. The first time I plugged it in using an external HDD caddy it came up and I was able to see the files, but as soon as I started trying to move them over, the drive unmounted itself. Since then I have not been able to mount the drive. I have attached photos of the PCB and I am wondering if it might be possible to purchase another HDD of the same model number and move the PCB over or if the BIOS will need to be moved over as well? The drive spins up and I do not hear any clicking sounds from it.

Thank you!

Not likely to be anything to do with the PCB then. Probably heads and your chance to clone or image was used up when trying to copy files from it. If it's not listed with the correct capacity (assume you're using a mac) then there's not a lot you can do yourself.

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Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

Like Lardman said, it is not a PCB issue could be heads, could be bad sectors, or even firmware, if you have important data send to a DR specialist.

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Data Recovery in the Dominican Republic
https://www.recuperamidata.com/

That’s what I was hoping not to hear. It does pull up the correct size drive when I plug it into a Mac and go to the Disk Utility.

It means is not completely dead if its still spinning and able to ID, trying to recover the HDD without the right equipment might get the situation a lot worse and then making the data unrecoverable.

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Data Recovery in the Dominican Republic
https://www.recuperamidata.com/

I'm not sure so anybody correct me if I am wrong.
I seem to remember that model can have an issue with the pcb that imitates head issues.
So often the fix is to use a donor pcb with a rom swap.

Is this one of those PCBs where the resistors around the SMOOTH IC can degrade and disturb the supply voltages? If the OP has a multimeter, we could take some simple measurements.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I do have a multimeter and can test whatever I need to.

Measure the +3.3V Vio voltage and V1, V2 and Vneg (-5V). Use any screw hole as your ground reference.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Here are my multimeter readings
3.30v - 3.25v
V1 - 1.08
V2 - 2.54
Vneg - .02

I suspect that V1 should be 1.2V for this model. I don't know if 1.08V is too low, but it just might be the culprit. I think a PCB swap might be worth a try.

Vneg probably rises to some negative voltage before being switched off by the MCU (after it fails to detect a preamp). I wouldn't be concerned about this just yet.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you! I will find another exact model and try swapping the PCB and see if that works!

That won't work. Each PCB stores unique calibration data in a serial flash memory chip ("ROM") at location U12. This IC, or its contents, needs to be transferred from patient to donor. A PCB supplier such as hdd-parts.com will include a ROM transfer in the price.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Just checked for you, it's 1.10v on a known good PCB, I only have the one drive handy though.

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Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

To be honest, I found this particular era of WD PCB prone to weird power issues that I almost always found easier to resolve by a transfer of the ROM to a known good donor PCB.

Frequently, the drive would work for a perioud of time when started cool and quickly go stupid after the board gets warm. While the temptation to just keep working with it, allowing it to cool after each failure is there, there are good chances that the heads are not getting properly parked when powering down, possibly causing irreversible head/platter damage.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

@Lardman, thank you for checking your board!

@lcoughey, that is good info to know! I will reach out to the owners and see what they value the info at and see if they want to try replacing the board.

Thank you all for your help!!!