Hi All,

Just a few quick question regarding a PCB swap on a laptop drive. I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out as I am way out of my comfort zone here and have never attempted to repair a HD before, thanks.

The HD in question is a Fujitsu MJA2500BH-G2 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA.

My laptop was liquid damaged while running in my absence and was not removed from power which pretty much fried everything. My HD was full and I really really need to recover the data. I tried connecting with a USB to SATA adapter and got nothing (no surprises there). I have since ordered a replacement HD, the exact same model and plan to swap the controller boards if possible. I have just a few questions.

Does the old board contain any information, ie. partition status, space used etc which will hinder my efforts? Or will I be able to just swap them over? Because I think it is safe to say that anything on the old board is useless.

If it is possible for me to fix this, what can I expect to see after opening? I expect a connector for the heads and one for the motor. Is this accurate or is there anything else I should be aware of? What type of connectors are they, ZIF? or something else?

Can anybody foresee any other problems I may encounter? Think I have a chance here? Or am I really running the risk destroying two drives? I think it is worth the risk if there is even a small hope as I had a lot of data which meant a lot to me, I really need this back!

Thanks guys for taking the time to read, sorry I am really inexperienced in this area.

And I really appreciate any help anybody can give,

Bren.

Just PCB swap won't help . You are spending time and money.




Why you don't want to pay for data recovery job, while it is not become very expensive?

_________________
Angel Data Recovery

Thanks for getting back to me.

Would love to pay for DR but I'm short of funds at the moment, other things have to take priority before I can do this. The replacement disk was a steal so I just got it anyway, I will need it at some stage.

Any particular reasons it wouldn't work?

Considering this:


Probably, it is families or some another photo's?

If yes :



You could wait for that time when you had enough funds . Photo's could wait.
Important not to harm yourself.



PCB has original heads adaptives inside.

_________________
Angel Data Recovery

Yep, there are lots of photo's and music and stuff which can wait for a while, but there is also some important college projects that I need to get access to before the end of May. I have some of them backed up but they haven't been updated recently so it will be an awful lot of work to get them back the way they need to be.

I would also like to get my old OS up and running the way it was as I had it heavily customised and had a lot of software etc installed, it would take me an age to get a new install just the way I like it to be.

I have a lot of other stuff to be doing seen as we are coming up to the end of the academic year so I was hoping I would be able to do it myself cheaply enough by swapping out the board.



No idea what this means, any chance you can elaborate on this a little?

Thanks again for getting back to me, really appreciate the time.

Each board stores unique, drive specific calibration data. These data need to be transferred to your donor PCB.

Sometimes there is a discrete 8-pin flash memory chip which can be physically transferred (by your local TV/AV repair shop). Alternatively, these "adaptives" may be stored internally with the main MCU chip.

Could you upload a photo or scan of the component side of your PCB?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Cheers for clearing that up mate,

Here it is:



Sorry, my camera's not the best.

Unfortunately I don't think I can see the chip you mentioned, so I guess it must be in the main chip then. Even if it was there I doubt it would be functional after the liquid damage the laptop endured.

So do I have any other options to fix this myself/cheaply?

How much approx would DR usually cost when there is likely no damage to the heads and platters and I have the same model donor drive for the transfer? ie. will probably be an easy enough job as they go.

Thanks again for taking a look...

I can't see any likely chip in your photo, but there is a 2A fuse, marked "N", near the +5V pins at the SATA power connector. Can you zoom up on that area, with a flatbed scanner if possible?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I decided to try it anyway, didn't see how it could do any harm. Just did a straight swap and let it run for a little over an hour. Didn't get any problems so I took an image onto an external drive should it fail. I'm using the system now and it's been running for a few hours. Happy days!!

Thanks for all the replies anyhow...

I'm interested to know how this straight PCB swap worked without moving the adaptive info across to the new PCB?

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

No idea how, but it's still working fine!!

Dosen't matter if it should fail now, I have recovered everything I needed to.

But there is no reason that I can see why it should...

I'm hoping someone here can explain why it worked? There should be 1 in 10,000 chance that it should work. Maybe you should play the lottery while you're luck is on a high!

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

Because this is Fujitsu. MJA needs only to match FW version. Luckily, the FW version matched.

Luckily, FW AND ADAPTIVES matched enough, otherwise the drive would have ID but not read / worked badly.
Time to play lottery because it was a stroke of good luck.

Same as Fujitsu MPG sometimes you would be lucky :O)

_________________
All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Hi brenryan

Just like u I am a virgin when it comes to HDD PCB swap.

My question is to u is which PCB did u use for ur dead MJA2500BH. I have the same HDD whis has given up on me and would like to swap the PCB but I cant find a working MJA2500BH for this purpose. If possible let me know which one u used. All the members pls let me know the alternative PCBs that might be compatible.

Regards
Mangesh

I used a MJA2500BH PCB I found here http://www.donordrives.com/

It appears to have been the last one they had in stock, I hope you find one.

Best of luck...