Hi

While back I got an untested SAMSUNG HM501II drive. After plugging it in I was greeted with nothing. No beeps, clicks, no nothing. Examining the PCB revealed that the 88i9122-TFJ2 chip was lightly cracked in half. Fortunately I have an donor drive of (probably) the same model, albeit an 1000GB (missing label so no idea what exact model it is) instead of 500GB. The donor was "working" before, although due to having a broken SATA connector it shorted 5V to GND when plugging in power. Now, the 1TB drive has an 88i9322-TFJ2 chip. So I have two ideas:
One - replace the cracked 88i9122 with the 88i9322 and hope for the best
Two - fix the short on 5V on donor board, swap flash memory with FW from patient to donor board and hope for the best
Buying the same donor drive is not worth it. Also will I need to modify the FW if I either swap the chips or boards around?

Bad idea, it's will not work.


Much better.

Three - buy a donor PCB, swap ROM chip. The best!