Hi, I don't know whether anyone will be able to help but here goes.
In about February 2009 my friend bought a cheapish Packard Bell which we later discovered had this drive in it. It worked perfectly until a few week ago. That day, she turned it on, and it booted up normally and got to the "choose user" page. Then, it started making a strange, high-pitched squealing/whining sound. This wasn't any kind of error message beep sequence - more like the kind of noise that makes you think "uh-oh". However (I was there) I don't remember hearing any "click of death" either. Then the computer suddenly stopped communicating with the screen, which went black apart from the message "no signal being received".
Her boyfriend thought it was a burnt out video card, having had something similar happen to him, and we used a spare screen to test it wasn't a fault with the screen itself. Since it was out of warranty, she hoped to just take out the hard drive and access the information using an adapter. However it is completely dead, not responding at all. We tried the freezer trick, which did not work.
However, I just noticed today that one very small black chip, (no more than 0.4 cm long) on the PCB is burnt out.

She is normally really careful about backing up data, but there is about two weeks of stuff that I know she is really really hoping to be able to get back. I have heard of swapping circuit boards with identical drives to bring them back to life, and was just wondering if anyone thinks this might be any use here?
All advice that anyone can offer is appreciated, thanks in advance for any help!
This is the drive:

The burnt component appears to be a MOSFET chopper which is probably associated with the 2R2 coil nearby. These form part of a DC-DC converter which supplies one of the voltages necessary for the drive's operation. I can't tell if this particular supply powers the preamp inside the HDA, in which case it would be potentially disastrous. Otherwise, the easiest solution may be to replace the board and transplant the 8-pin serial EEPROM chip from patient to donor. I believe this chip is located at U5, in the top RH corner, to the left of the label, and to the right of the SATA connector block. You may need to ask your local TV/AV repair shop to do the soldering for you. If you can post the part numbers on the chips at U5 and U300, that would help me confirm their identities.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi,
thanks for replying.
The part number of the chip at U5 is "S93C76 ADVHX 3043". I couldn't find U300 for ages until I realised it was the burnt one If it ever had a number on it to begin with, it's completely gone now
I'm a novice when it comes to this - so does this mean there's no way we could just put a whole new board on it? Some old parts would have to be patched on?
Thnaks in advance

No way just to put new PCB on. The chip that you need to transplant has very important information about the hard drive and need to be careful otherwise you will loose data for ever *although some people can rebuild data for that chip;but its not cheap.
Yes you will need to spend some money to recover the data any way and just arm yourself in patience and find a somebody that is experienced in doing these things or similar.
There is a member on here OnePCBSOlutions / or PCBOnesolution cant remember that can do all this for you for a neat price.

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I did repair a drive with similar problem (burnt U300). Just find a proper PCB , swap the NVRAM chip (U5) and mount it on the drive.
Proper PCB means one with identical first line on the label.

Well that gives me hope Sorry if I'm being thick, but which label do you mean? The tiny white one on the PCB itself?

correct

Just to confirm, the S93C76 chip is a serial EEPROM.

S-93C76A, CMOS SERIAL E2PROM, 8K-bit, 512 x 16, Seiko Instruments Inc.:
http://datasheet.sii-ic.com/en/microwir ... C76A_E.pdf
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf-dat ... -41509.pdf

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks
So does not being able to see the code on the U300 make a difference? Do you think it is worth trying to swap over the EEPROM chip (if I can find a matching drive)? Do you reckon we have a decent chance of getting the data back, like say at least 40%?
Sorry for all the questions, we've never done anything like this before
Thanks for your advice everyone

BGman is much better able to answer your question than I. Since the same procedure worked for him, then hopefully it will work for you, too.

I only asked for the identity of the burnt component to help me determine whether it was involved with the supply for the preamp.

Good luck.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.