I have the above drive in for recovery and it will spin up for 5-10 seconds and then spin down; no clicking. Does anyone know if there is adaptive data in the MCU? I have access to Atola Insight, but it doesn't seem to want to give the drive enough power to get it to spin at all. Thoughts?

Yes, adaptive data is in Marvell chip. If it's not PCB-related, then it's most likely a head issue. I'm not familiar with Atola's capabilities so I can't advise on how to proceed with that tool. However it is possible using other tools to image under any good heads before proceeding to head swap. Don't dive into changing heads before you exhaust all alternatives.

Thanks msurgeon - I don't do head swaps on WD currently. I have WD Doctor as well, so maybe I will hook that up and see if anything comes up. With adaptives in the Marvell chip, is there any way to transfer that data to a donor PCB? I don't have PC3000.

Since we only use PC3000 I can't speak about WD Doctor's capabilities. I'm guessing that it probably has the ability to transfer ROM contents to new PCB. This is not the drive on which to experiment with head swaps so definitely leave that task to the pros.

You can transfer the ROM to a new PCB using WD Doctor, as long as you can access the ROM contents of the patient drive.

So WD Doctor spins the drive, but it then spins down again after 5-10 seconds. Strangely enough, WD Doctor then says the drive is 'Ready' after you try to ID from HDD, but no drive specific information shows up. Reading ROM also fails - no surprise there. May have to punt this one to a bigger shop.

OK hold on wait a second on this one. You can try this one first. Power off the WD tool. Then power it back on. In the menu just open the file. Do not try to load from HDD on this one. Just open the directory file on this one. After go to ROM and try again to read the ROM. Report back and see if you can read the ROM on this one. Normally if you try to load from HDD you will not be able to read the ROM after this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini

OK, here are the exact steps I took:

1. Connected all cables to the Doctor and the HD
2. Started the Doctor program
3. Powered on the drive - spun up/down - drive reads ready in Doctor
4. Went directly to ROM Management tab in Doctor
5. Read ROM from HDD - 'Error reading ROM'

Are those the steps you indicated? Not sure about the step 'Just open the directory file on this one'.

Shawn

On the right side panel there is open directory the name is Manual load. This has to be opened first on this one. When it is opened in the line on the bottom of the screen it will give you a directory that you have opened. Then from here you can read the ROM on this one

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Iorana Haraharaini

So I was able to read one .bin file and one .res file. When I do the PCB hot swap, do I then write the .bin file back to the new PCB?

No offense but if you're having trouble dealing with ROMs and PCBs then you should outsource this until you get some more experience...

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

That's what I am trying to do....gain experience. I don't take what I do lightly, which is why I ask these questions - so as not to screw anything up. I am always very grateful to the people who share their knowledge and experience with me.

Wish I could help you, but I do not use those tools. If drive comes up as ready - means that ROM is accessible, you just have to figure out how to access it. But, IMO, the issue is not the ROM nor it is board. Drive boots up, attempts to calibrate each head, but fails to calibrate 1 (it does NOT have to click), therefore, because it cannot calibrate all of the heads, it shuts itself down. To recover data from this type of drives, usually, a 'head map editing' option is used, which tricks calibration process in a hard drive, and calibrates a different head instead of the one needed, therefore boots normally. If ATOLA or WD Doctor supports that feature - try it, boot from system heads (0 or 1), then try and read by heads. Otherwise, just send it to somebody else, you wont really do anything here, nor learn anything.

OK, so I was finally able to get a good donor drive. Ran through hot swap with SD tech support, who determined the donor drive's firmware was not a good enough match. Here are some of the information/questions I now have:

Patient drive: WD5000AAJB-00UHA0
DCM HBNCHV2ABB
MOTOR CODE 1107-TBHOB

Donor drive: WD5000AAJB-00UHHA0
DCM HARCHV2AAN
MOTOR CODE 1107-RBHOB

1. Are these 2 a good enough match?
2. SD tech support guy said it was firmware issue and not bad heads because drive did not click after hot swap. Is this correct?
3. SD tech support guy said that ROM transfer was only necessary for cold swap. When we did hot swap, he wrote P-list and G-list. Is this correct?
4. If any SD gurus wanted to answer above questions and assist me via TeamViewer, I would gladly pay reasonable charge. Prefer someone near same time zone - GMT-07:00. Reply via PM.

Shawn

Whatever is bad needs to be replaced (modules, heads, pcb, whatever). It doesn't really make any sense to be doing a hotswap...

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Yes.

Probably not. For example, You can have bad heads 2-5 and the drive won't click.
I use different gear, but you need more than P-List and G-List to get data back after hot swap.

Based upon the odds, I'm afraid that this drive is going to require a head swap. I don't recommend that you learn about head swaps on a client's drive, or do other "experiments" without understanding & having successful hands-on experience with WD Royal family procedures and peculiarities.

Jon

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