Hi.

I am entirely new to this forum, and also new to the area of data recovery (I came across this forum when trying to look for ways to get this data back). I am hoping that you knowledgable folk here will be able to provide me with some guidance.

I have an Hitachi Deskstar HDD that died after a power connector was plugged in whilst the system was running. I have obtained another drive of the same type which matches the model number, capacity, firmware, part number and MLC.

I have sawpped the PCB over and when booting my machine, the drive was recognised as an IDE disk during POST, then the system moved on to display the following error: '"Primary Slave Hard Disk Error' with an 'F1 to resume' prompt. The system then continues to boot normally if I hit F1. The disk is not detected in Windows.

After doing some study on the subject, it appears that there may be an NVRAM chip on the PCB, which I will need to desolder and fit to the donor PCB. I thought that the HDD may not have one. There is only one '8-legged chip' on the PCB, so I believe that means it most likely is the NVRAM but in truth I am uncertain whether this is the case or not. . I have taken a photo of the PCB and highlighted the area where I think the NVRAM chip may be, so that you can see what I am talking about. Additionally, the drive specs are as follows:

Make: Hitachi Deskstar
Capacity: 200GB
Model: HDT722520DLAT80
Part Number: 0A32010
MLC: BA1769
PCB/Firmware: 0A29476 BA1588

If anyone is able to help me out it would be very much appreciated.

An update: Ignore the 'Disk Error' and the 'F1 to resume' part of my previous post - I hadn't configured the jumpers correctly. (D'oh!).

I can confirm that if I refit the donor PCB back onto it's original HDD, that disk functions fully, and is recognised by the BIOS and Windows.

So my current problem is that my exisiting HDD will not even spin up with the donor PCB fitted.

Can you post the details from your donor drive as well and a picture from it?

Thanks for your reply. The details of the donor drive match exactly the details in my first post, and the PCB you can see in the picture is the donor PCB fitted to the drive that won't spin up.

Ok.
I can't see very well on the picture, but it doesn't seem nv-ram that IC.
But from what you've told, might be that preamp is damaged too, and that's the reason that it won't spin even with a new PCB on it.

I don't have any experience with those drives, but if you upload a pic of the 8-pin chip (or give the markings on it) then someone can identify if it's a NVRAM chip. If this PCB does have one then you'll need to swap if over to your identical donor PCB. Well that's the case with WD drives, never worked with one of these.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

The chips is marked RL76.

Is it a symptom of a failed preamp if the disk won't spin up even with a working PCB? If the preamp was OK, would the disk at least spin even with the incorrect NVRAM?

Can be, depending on the failure.

The circled chip is a serial EEPROM (aka NVRAM).

L76R, Microwire BUS 8Kbit (512 x 16bit) EEPROM, SOP-8P:
BR93L76RF, Rohm
http://www.rohm.com/products/databook/e ... r93l-e.pdf

However, there appears to be an unpopulated location above the infineon MCU. I suspect that it may be reserved for a serial flash memory chip. However, it could be that the relevant flash code is incorporated into the MCU, in which case you may need to also match its firmware version. But I could be completely wrong on that score ...

In any case, if you have a multimeter, you could always compare the two boards. You could also measure some important voltages on your working drive before you troubleshoot the original one, assuming you feel confident enough to do so.

BTW, what are the numbers on the big MCU chip, for both donor and patient?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Seems like the RL76 is the one you're after. Read this post:
hitachi-deskstar-hds728080plat20-pcbswap-can-locate-nvram-t10971.html

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

The unpopulated location is used when the MASK ROM is external to the MCU (Often seen on early examples)

_________________
All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Thanks for your replies so far folks. The MCU is marked as follows:

Patient PCB MCU:

0A29480
UAB-M3057-HTV
V4 ROM
FR KR SI
EL604043EB2

The number on the right of the chip (written vertically) is G0606

Donor PCB MCU:

0A29480
UAB-M3057-HTV
V4 ROM
FR KR SI
EL606074EB4

The number on the right of the chip (written vertically) is G0608

Additional information:

The firmware/PCB sticker on the drives is exactly matched for the first two lines, and the last two lines of each are different as follows:

Patient:

0A29476
BA1588
M1z609
876P

Donor:

0A29476
BA1588
M1t612
87VD


Both boards have the 'blank space' above the MCU.

I had a conversation today with a guy from a DR company who stated that in his opinion, the disk should spin up and then start to click if the NVRAM is incorrect, and he believes that the R/W heads have failed due to a 12V surge. I don't know if that's the case or not, and I'd like to try and avoid paying around £300 to get the data recovered if at all possible!

I'm not a data recovery guy, so please take my opinion under advisement.

That said, I believe that the MCUs are a match.

0A29480 --- Hitachi's internal part number
UAB-M3057-HTV --- infineon's part number
V4 ROM --- identifies internal masked ROM code
FR KR SI --- country (-ies ???) of manufacture, ie France, Korea, Singapore ???
EL606074EB4 --- serial number ???

The G0606 and G0608 numbers appear to be YYWW date codes, eg week 08 of 2006.

I don't know if your board will normally identify itself to BIOS if it not attached to the HDA, but if it does, then that may be a way of determining whether it has sanity. You could first try the donor PCB on its own.

In order to determine whether the preamp is shorted, you need to find its supply rails. Then test the resistances between each rail and ground, or between the two rails. However, the preamp may still be faulty, even if not shorted.

If you need help doing the above, then upload detailed photos of both sides of the PCB.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Your drive SHOULD spin up with the donor PCB (but BUSY signal not cleared).
Most likely motor is damaged or stuck.