Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
June 17th, 2011, 1:46
My HDD suddenly smoked and the SATA power port was badly burned. This was all while I was browsing the internet and doing some pdf creation. Is there any way to recover my files cheaply? I really need it for my undergraduate thesis and I am about to graduate this semester (but due to this hdd burn). I have read board replacement but I need to resolder/solder the rom back.
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- The burned port
June 17th, 2011, 1:57
Post picture of the other side of the PCB, please.
June 17th, 2011, 2:12
labtech wrote:Post picture of the other side of the PCB, please.
Here you go
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- That's the close up photo of the back side. No other burn marks aside from that part.
June 17th, 2011, 2:51
If you have an identical board and feel comfortable swapping the ROM then you need to upload a picture of the whole PCB, not just a bit of it, so that we can identify the ROM chip.
Or you could try and fix the problem with the connector itself. You need to see if there is damage to any other PCB components, you'll need a multimeter.
June 17th, 2011, 4:39
I don't have an identical board at the moment.

I just want to know what is the cheapest way to repair this and buying an identical board is expensive(compared to buying and identical drive)?
I have a multimeter which I can use. What components should I check?
June 17th, 2011, 4:48
Seems to me, most of all important components had burned too. Show full picture, not just interface part.
June 17th, 2011, 11:18
DR-Kiev wrote:Seems to me, most of all important components had burned too. Show full picture, not just interface part.
Here are the pics sorry they are blurred due to low lighting conditions
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June 18th, 2011, 10:19
guys?
June 18th, 2011, 13:16
move rom to donor
June 18th, 2011, 13:49
einstein9 wrote:move rom to donor
I am sorry but what is the ROM chip on that board? I don't really repair HDDs but I am quite knowledgeable on ICs and PC parts. I'm afraid that I might damage the pins of the ROM chip too.
June 18th, 2011, 14:31
Here..
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June 18th, 2011, 21:27
The bottom of the board is showing damage to the +5V and ground pins at the SATA power connector, whereas the component side has damage to the ground pins.
The first thing you should do is to verify your PSU, particularly its +5V output.
Then measure the resistances of the two TVS diodes using a multimeter set to the 200 ohms range.
The following photo clips should help you identify the components:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST ... AS_TVS.jpghttp://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST ... AS_fix.jpgIf you need to replace the board, the following suppliers include a "ROM" or "firmware" transfer service:
http://www.onepcbsolution.comhttp://www.hdd-parts.comI believe one board supplier on this forum may offer a free service, although he doesn't advertise it.
That said, if you are looking for a cheaper solution, and you are prepared to take a big risk, then you could solder a 4-pin Molex peripheral connector to the SATA power pins.
Here are the pinouts:
http://pinouts.ru/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtmlhttp://pinouts.ru/Power/BigPower_pinout.shtml
June 19th, 2011, 2:19
The PSU is fine I am still using it. I have already tested it using a PSU tester and it works fine except that one sata power connector got damaged. Since it is modular I just threw the cable away.
Thanks for all the replies.
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