Need a GURU to attempt to repair my 4Tb HHD

[DarrenA]

Hello. I have a fanxiang 4Tb HHD that I broke the connector for the data port while installing it in my son's new PC. I am pretty OK with soldering so I thought I will just replace the pcb connector and it will be fine.... sadly I feel my soldering skills and failing eyesight might have let me down. I somehow damaged a trace on the power port side (for Ground) and completely tore a pad off on one of the data lines. I repaired both of those, the internal LED's on the drive light up, The data pad was jumpered with wire to the side of a cap, and Ohm out, BUT the PC will not detect the drive. I am throwing in the towel before I make things worse....... A simple repair that was going great... till it was not has left me with a dead 200.00 drive. Anyone out there in the USA with a microscope and better skills than me willing to give it a shot?

I have already made an offer on another drive so my son can at least get his PC finally. But if I can get this repaired he can have another 4Tb Drive in his system.

[Zero Alpha]

Those fanxiang ssd drives are cheap and nasty, better to replace it. Post a picture of it

[DarrenA]

Here you go. You can see the 2 repairs I made in both the photos.

Attachments

[DarrenA]

Anyone willing? I hate to just toss a Literal 200.00 Drive in the trash.

[fzabkar]

https://www.clubedohardware.com.br/uploads/attachments/monthly_2023_04/6.jpg.844b55bf621fbbfea0517b73a7c53231.jpg

See the "ROM" shorting pads above the two LEDs. Short them with tweezers before and after power-on, and then release the short after a few seconds. Is the SSD now detected, albeit it with a factory alias and reduced capacity?

[DarrenA]

That link you posted shows as invalid / does not allow external linking.

[fzabkar]

https://i.postimg.cc/FzgHv3f8/Fanxiang-SSD-PCB.jpg

Attachments

ROM_shorting_points.jpg (32.99 KiB) Viewed 424 times

[fzabkar]

That link you posted shows as invalid / does not allow external linking.

I think the trick is to go to the web site ...

https://www.clubedohardware.com.br

... and then enter the JPEG URL. At least that worked for me, after the initial rejection.

[DarrenA]

So IF I do this will it adversely effect the Drive?? I don't want to mess it up and end up with a 4Tb Drive that sees only 20 meg or something

[Lardman]

It puts the controller into safe mode - it wont do anything permanent to the drive but forces it into as simple an operating state as possible - ie to check for ripped traces and the state of your soldering. If you get nothing from it like that then there are problems, if you do then there a problems with the firmware / nand. If you remove the short and then repower the drive it will return to it's normal state.

Either way - as ZeroAlpha has already mentioned, these are budget drives and unless there's data on them the juice is rarely worth the squeeze.