Hello,
a friend has given me an old hdd with ide interface wd2500bb-55rda0 and we didn't know what was its state of service.
I tested it with a ide-usb adapter and it didn't worked.
After supply, First it begins spinning, then there are three serials of three clicks, i can see it in the windows explorer, but in the disk manager i can see removable disk no data; and it's impossible to open it.
There are no shortcuts for the 5v and 12v...it would'nt be a problem of transil tsv diode.
Perhaps it doens't worth that i follow the investigations with the swap of the pcb and of the eeprom?
Can you give me some advice , if it's possible to repair it, and what are the tests that i must execute to deepen the problem?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
jeanluc.ferre

Hello,

Very likely (with probability 95% and upper), the clicks are caused by one or more heads being damaged.
Your computer sees the controller of your adapter (e.g. external enclosure or docking station), but not the disk itself.

What you can do is uncrewing the printed circuit board only, and check if its contact points to the head stack assembly are oxydized.
If so, remove the oxydation and test the disk again.
I would say that around, without consideration for the disk model, 1 to 2% of cases of clicking drives can be solved this way.

In case of bad heads, replacing the PCB would be without effect.
Only head stack replacement in a clean bench (often marketed as clean room), with proper equipement would allow recovering the data.
It is not worth repairing the hard drive, apart for the purpose of recovering the disk data if they are valuable.

Regards.

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Hello,
Thank you for your answer.
I have already verified and cleaned the contacts on the pcb, with no results.
Somewhere i have read that the clicking may result of a supply power problem. When i verify the voltages at the input of the pcb i don't find the 5v. At the output of the usb ide adapter i have not the 5v even when the hdd is deconnected.
Now i am looking for a new adapter or a dock station to eliminate this problem of supply.
First, after supplying the hdd, as i heard and felt the spinning of the disk (before the clicks), it seems me that yet some things work well on this disk.
waiting for your answers.
jeanluc.ferre

measure the -5V supply on the pcb without HDA... this pcb is similar aged as 701335, which is prone to develop problems in the DC-DC converters.

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Hello,
Thank you for your answers, i am late to reply at your posts but i was looking for new usb -ide adapters.
I used another IDE-USB adapter in conjunction with a 12v-5v source taken from a desktop tower distribution...and it still clicks just as much without the disk opening...
The only difference with the use of the previous adapter is that this time in the “disk manager” I see appear: “unknown disk – not initialized” with a pop-up asking me to initialize the disk. With the previous adapter I had “removable disk – no data” (even with the use of the external 12-5v source).
A third ide - usb adapter gave me the same results that the use of the second one.
I tried to test the voltages at the input of the PCB and I have difficulties reading the 5v after stabilizing the system as if it were crashing...
Now i will try supplying the pcb without the hdd...
Waiting for your answers and advices after this new tries.
jeanluc.ferré

i would suggest forgetting about usb adapters completely but i know it poses some difficulty finding a pc with ide port these days. However, your problem is not the usb adapter but the pcb and perhaps the preamp too. So you should measure the onboard generated supplies on the pcb without the hda first. The -5V supply might be only present for a few seconds after applying the power.

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Show us a detailed photo of the PCB.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hello,
Thank you for your answers.
The pcb is : 2060-701292-002 rev a.
i measured the 5v at the input of the pcb during all the cycle and for all my configurations , the 5v is always present.
At home, i have an old desktop with a motherboard having the two interfaces sata and ide...perhaps i will try my hdd on it.
I will try to send you the photos but it's not very easy...
Thank you in advance for your help.
Jean Luc Ferré

Measure the Vio, Vcore and Vneg voltages. Use any screw hole as your ground reference.

Vneg may only be present for a short time after power-on.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

here are the photos

Hello,
Great thanks for all your help.
With only the supply connections (12, 5v) and without any load (the ide-usb adapter not connected) i made the measures that you recommend me and here are the results:
vio: 3,23v
vneg:-5,23v
vcore:1,37v
if you want i can connect the adapter and switch on it.
i have just made the measures in this last case with the same results.
(therefore it seems i noticed one thing on my adapter : the two lights (red, blue) were lighted , i didn't notice that before).
Hoping that you could give me useful recommendations, thank you for all.
jeanluc.ferré

I think those voltages are OK. I don't know what the Vcore was for that era, but 1.37V should be in the right range. I think your drive has an internal fault.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

i think so too, but i would leave the pcb powered on for a while and check -5V, i had such drives with drifting -5V a few mins after powerup, which could have led to preamp damage...
btw, measuring preamp pins and comparing to a known good drive is a good idea as well.

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hello,
thank you for your replies,
the pcb being unscrewed from the disk, i measured the vneg -5v during several minutes until half an hour and its always -5,23v.
It seems i understood what was the hda...but can you indicate me what are the pins of the 20pins connector on the disk that i had to controled with a multimeter-ohmmeter to verify that the preamp has not been damaged?
i realised that i didn't cleaned these 20 pins but aparently there is no oxydation.
What do you mean with "internal fault"? is it an unrecoverable hardware default with the heads or the platters or must i reinitialise the hdd?
waiting for your answers.
jeanluc.ferré

Hello,

Seems your -5V is ok, so i recommend asking pro help, you have very slim chance to recover this drive with internal fault but a great deal to screw it up.
Internal fault = preamp/heads/surface problem or some of these simultaneously.

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Hello,
Thank you for your contributions and remarks.
Finally i put the hdd in my old pc desktop which had ide interfaces motherboard (without using usb-ide adapters), removing the connections of an old cd-rom reader and replacing it by the connectors of the hdd.
Of course, nothing happened , only clicking, nothing in the bios, nothing in the disk manager.
I ordered a new pcb and we will see if something will happen after the swap.
thank you for your advices.
jeanluc.ferré

good luck with it, let us know how it went.
pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

Again: When the HDD is spinning (and clicking), the likeliness of a PCB-related issue is low.

Even if the problem was PCB-related (~5% likelyness) the swap will not suffice as you will need to transfer the part of the firmware containing the unique HDD specifics. You will need to transfer the BIOS chip physically or by reading/writing it.

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Data recovery in Geneva (Switzerland)
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Hello,
Thank you for your contributions...
i replaced the pcb with a new one where i soldered on it the old eeprom of the previous pcb...but i have always the same result (spinning and clicking...).
I put the drive at the place of a cd-rom device inside my desktop with ide interfaces...but perhaps i need to reorganized and adjust otherwise the jumpers programming slave-master-cs positions !!! i don't know?
Thank you in advance for your advices.
jeanluc.ferre

Does it click three times in sequence and then the drive turns off?

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