This is my journey as I work my way through repairing a Western Digital HDD (WD10EADS-OOL5B1) external harddrive that stopped responding and trying to figure out a plan of attack.

I first called western digital to gain approval to open the device for data recovery so that my warranty would not be voided. While there are no screws to take out as in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlySnyJ0CQ video from youtube but it was helpful to understand how to remove the outside enclosure.

Is it a external power supply failure? Nope-
After taking apart the casing and removing the HDD I put it into my blacX external adaptor. This HDD caused blacX to not be able to power on.

Is it a PCB issue?
I was told by the techs at Staples that the pcb board could be changed out with another one and that would fix my problem (not true). I purchased another drive but it was from nearly a year after mine was made. The pcb board was only held in place by 4 screws so it was easy to remove the boards and switch them. The patient drive with the donor pcb board loaded I put it into blacX and the blacx was able to power on. As the device started to spin it sounded like the heads could not find the starting point. My computer did recognize that a USB device was plugged in, but I could not access anything. It was at this point I started researching on this forum. Great article on how HDD works and parts http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html What the staples guys did not tell me was that I had to match the model number (wd10eads-00L5B1), Date of Manufacture (23 Aug 2009) so that it would have the same firmware DCM:HANNNT2MFB, and would also have to find the same PCB board model of 2061-701590-J00 AD or at least match the 701590.

Finding a PCB replacement?
Western Digital
Started by calling western digital to hope that they could send me a replacement drive from their inventory. I gave them all the criteria and they said they would send me out a matching copy. This is similar to what was in this post http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/hard-drive-support/487422-i-am-dire-straits-pcb-board-fried.html Even with talking to them over and over again for 2 hours they still sent out a model that was just produced and I am having to send back. They did not help at all.

Ebay?
I have been searching through EBAY for a donor western digital drive and have yet to find anything that matches.

PCB Suppliers?
I have also been searching online to find a pcb supplier as most data recovery centers will not sell only parts. I tried several recommeded from this post http://forum.hddguru.com/wanted-western-digital-1tb-wd10eads-00l5b1-pcb-t15265.html who was also searching for a pcb board. I have contacted all the people on the list but have not heard back from any of them yet.

I am to the point where I am trying to check the diodes and resistors. A digital multimeter will cost me $10 so I will see how this goes. This topic talks about some success http://forum.hddguru.com/pcb-repair-replaced-help-needed-for-two-book-t16214.html. I am hoping an electronics store may be able to help me figure out what fried.

I am asking for help in figuring out a plan of attack. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. For those of you who are having the same issues I hope this post has given you an idea of where to begin.

I ordered a donor PCB from this site for 10 USD and 29 USD in shipping to Denmark!

http://www.hkmingdi.com/enindex.asp (eric_lee8341@hotmail.com)

Very fast communication and product worked. Sadly the PCB wasn't the only problem with my faulty HDD

Search TVS on this forum

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www.datarecoveryne.com

TVS diodes protect the chips on the printed circuit board from voltage surges and spikes. It is most probably unlikely that this is what has affected your drive as, I assume that the rest of your computer is working ok.
External drives usually fail as a result of being dropped, you might not be aware of it, it may have been a pet or a small child etc. so buying a multimeter etc may be a further waste of money. Maybe just go to a computer shop or auto electrician and ask if they could do a quick measurement of these diodes for you.
If you are carrying the HDD around with you take antistatic precautions to prevent other unseen problems resulting to the circuitry.

i have such PCB in stock too. but i don't recommend customer to swap main for this kind of MCU. i will help customer transfer firmware for it. with stable way

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data recovery service[/b]

This should have been your starting point, given the symptoms you have described. If you are lucky, $10 is all that you will need to spend to get your drive going again. Better still, if you can upload a detailed photo, there may be some visible damage that will help us identify the problem.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I wanted to update all of you on where I am at this point. Thank you for your replies.

I have yet to find an electronics store that will check the diodes and resistors out of NYC. As suggested I searched the forums for information on TVS diodes and resistors, but have yet to find a good resource. I am attaching some pictures of my pcb board so that I can understand a bit better about TVS diodes and resistors. While I do not see any visible damage I am hoping this may be of some help.

A bit more information that was requested from some people: the white label number is 2061-701590-J00 AD and the etched number is 2060-701590-000 Rev A. This is for a Western Digitial WD10EADS-00L5B1, Date 23 Aug 2009, DCM HANNNT2MFB, Product of Thailand, PCB 2061-701590-J00.

I have also been trying to understand a bit more about the ROM located on the MCU and how this corresponds to the internal ROM. From my understanding it is this ROM that allows the heads to determine the exact starting location on the platter. Is this ROM the same as the firmware? I have not been advised much about the ROM and have only been advised to make sure the firmware was the same. This would make sense as to why you cannot just put in a new pcb without making sure the ROM/firmware is the same. From another post networkpc3000 said

Thank you for any additional help that you can provide.

I can't see any visible damage, but you should measure the resistances of TVS diodes D3 (marking 5L) and D4 (13L) near the SATA power connector. Also measure zero ohm links R67 and R64. Use the 200 ohms range of your digital multimeter.

BTW, the 2060 number on the PCB reflects the bare PCB, whereas the 2061 number on the label reflects a populated board.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

So today I went and took my harddrive to an electronics store and had them check the diodes and resistors. It turns out that one of the resistors 13L had failed and for $25 they replaced the diode. I know it is somewhat overpriced but I at least the hdd is now turning on. This confirmed my initial though that the internal heads were not faulty since when I put another pcb board onto the hdd it turned on but was not able to initialize since the firmware was incorrect. So now my computer is recognizing the device as a WDC 10EADS-00L5B1 usb device in the device manager (right click on my computer, manage, device manager, disk drives for those trying to figure it out) but it is asking to initialize it. In disk management it is saying disk 3 with 931 gb unallocated. I am worried that initializing the disk will reformat the drive and all this work will be for nothing. I hope you guys can help and I will keep looking over the forum for other places this has been posted. Thank again

See if you can image the drive to a known good one, using a non-windows imaging software (e.g. dd_rescue, Media Tools pro). Then use some recovery software on the clone (e.g. Getdataback, R-Studio).

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Yep, thats the way to go.

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Could we see the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Do that AFTER cloning the drive!

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

I doubt that accessing two sectors in readonly mode will break the camel's back.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

The data on the drive is probably encrypted. Use the original enclosure adapter from WD.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Hi, I have the same drive WD10EADS-00l5b1. One day the HDD just start to clicking and not recognized from the computer. I found the same one and swap the PCB. The result was no more clicking for my old drive but still not visible for computer. After that I did swap of Main IC and Smooth, but clicking come again. What this mean? Is the IC on the head damaged or Firmware IC(SOC/MCU) is broken? In my country nobody can repair this hard drive, what I have suppose to do after all of my trying please help

This is not correct...We have here a reputable member from Bulgaria. His name is SAMO here on forum.

And about your problem try to swap only the MCU on the new board and let the Smooth chip on his place...Maybe you have a chance this way.
Rgds

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www.datasave.ro

Thanks for reply. I sent message to SAMO, hope he will answer me soon as possible. Tonight I'll re-change the smooth again and tell you if I have some luck. Thanks !

PS: Actually the swapping of these kind of IC's is very difficult solution, it can't be done without professional soldering tools and microscope. Thanks god that I have a friend working in professional service for Mobile Phones and has all of these utilities... Is it possible the MCU to be damaged itself, I mean which damage it is more possible: internal amplifier IC on the head stack or MCU(Main Firmware on the PCB)? I don't want to open the drive if I'm not sure the problem is internal. I'm just wondering in which way to go ahead? I think I can swap the head stack from the new drive to the old one, but I'm not sure if this will work I just don't want to give up

Check your PM

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DataRecovery.bg