hello

I have a Seagate ST1500DM003 drive which would not spin

In hope it's a PCB-only problem, I was able to buy the same disk from the same factory (site: SU) , with PCB 100664987 REV A, with same PN, (9YN16G-500) firmware (CC4B), nearly the same Date (12385 vs 12392) printed on. WWN is (5000C5004AE98F3E vs 5000C5004AFCE1F7), SN (S1E06Y9C vs S240BJ97)

Now I have got a question:

Is it possible to switch the PCB only, just to TRY if this would work without transferring ROM chip, or could that possibly harm the data on the device?

donordrives says:

.

but on other site, they say



As I have the same Firmware, so I would like to know if it is safe to try to switch only the PCBs.

On datarecoveryunion I read:

So the SN is stored on the rom?

For the ROM chip transplantation, I would follow donordrives Procedure
Hope this is as straightforward as it looks like, please tell me If I'm missing any important parts, thanks

You can try without the ROM transfer, but it likely won't work without it. I assume that you have no intention of having this job done by a professional data recovery lab, as any damage you cause cannot be undone.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

F3 arch. You DO NEED to swap Rom otherwise the drive will just click and you can cause further damage to it.
Unique adaptives required for SA access are stored on Rom.
Be very careful, if you damage the ROM chip moving it you will not be able to regen it's content neither gain access to the data.
Do not try to swap pcb without swaping ROM even if it's a perfect match, including fw version. Drive will just click.

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ok, I have now unscrewed the pcb boards, the rom chip on the original board is a 25fs406 04 2HH04, on the donor board its a EN25S40, Eon Silicon Solution, marking cFeon S40-75GIP, 4 Megabit 1.8V Serial Flash Memory with 4Kbyte

Just to be shure, may I switch them without problems? the board rev is the same....
thanks in advance

Yes, you can.

The brand/manufacturer of the ROM chips are diferent but they are compatible.

BE CAREFUL not to damage the chip while swaping it.

Good luck and let us know if it worked out for you !

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thankyou very much, I'll be super careful

thankyou very much, I'll be super careful
and report if it worked out

The 2 chips are 4 Megabit 1.8V Serial Flash Memory with 4Kbyte , i've just checked on google, they are made by diferent manufacturers but they have the same specs.

Regards.

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thankyou very much, I'll be super careful
and report if it worked out

doublepost

Just DO NOT overheat the chip while removing it.
If you loose the chip of if you damage it you might be looking for a VERY DIFICULT recovery, because at the moment no tool can recover from damaged ROM on F3 arch and only a few data recovery houses do that work and charge a lot.

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hmm no success so far - harddisk does not spin with new pcb...
I was super careful and did heat as short as possible - should I try to revert the procedure if the pcb works again with the donor hdd?

Either the drive have a damaged/shorted pre-amp or you solder ROM in the wrong way or some pin of the ROM chip is not making correct contact with PCB or it's shorted, etc ...

Can you post a picture of the PCB with ROM soldered to it ? Are you sure you didn't solder the ROM upside down ?

It's allways better to have an entire drive to test instead of just a pcb, because you could swap the pcb to the donnor drive and check it out.

If the initial problem was with ROM itself you might have transfered the problem to the new PCB ... but it's not likely to be the case. I would vote for damaged pre-amp if the ROM is well soldered.

You can try to swap ROM again and use the new PCB with it's ROM. Drive should just click but at least it should spin.

If it doesn't spin at all neither it tries to spin then most likely pre-amp is gone.

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yeah, I have bought the whole hdd, nearly same specs,...

upside down no, The dot is whereit should be..

here is the photo, with flux still on

http://postimg.org/image/zbll3lcwz

so first thing to try would be just swapping the pcb as it is now to the donnor drive?

the photo

Ok ...
Did you try the PCB with it's own ROM when it did arrive or did you swap the ROM first ?

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I did swap first

should I try the pcb as is in the donnor drive first? I would like to minimize soldering es much as possible

Hummm .... Ok
So the problem might be

- Shorted pre-amp inside the drive
- Damaged PCB
- Damaged ROM

There are few things left to do by yourself.

1 - Change ROM back and test with the new PCB with it's own ROM. If your original ROM is damaged the drive should spin and click with the new PCB with it's own ROM, assuming the PCB is ok and the pre-amp is not shorted.

2 - Get a TTL adaptor and connect it to the drive to further check if the drive outputs something to the terminal. PCB alone connected to the terminal could also provide more clues to the problem.

http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=192

http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=193

Regards and good luck.

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thanks, gonna try tomorrow - too tired now

No problem.
Will be hopping for the best.

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