Hello good people,

I'm really hoping someone can help me out here. My Samsung HD154UI 1.5Tb was happily working in a system until it starts tripping the PSU. When the SATA power is connected the CPU fan turns a quarter rotation and then nothing. Tried 2 other PSUs - all the same.

So I take a look at the PCB and can't see any obvious scorch marks or shorts across any of the terminals. I have attached a high res image of the offending drive's PCB.

So now I'm thinking it might be a blown diode, but as to how to check or replace I might need some guidance.

Needless to say the data on the drive wasn't backed up and I'm hoping for a miracle cure here.

Incidentally, this is one of three Samsung HDDs fail on me in the past few months.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

You could search the forum to check how to test the diodes.
If that solves your problem, great! If not, finding a donor PCB to replace it's not so easy as ROM is not external.

If the Data is important - consult a pro before replacing or removing anything.

With that said, Search these forums for TVS Diode and how to test them.

Test the 2 Large TVS's located in the top left hand side of the picture. (assuming those are both tvs's)

1. So the pc boots to bios without the hard drive connected?
2. Have you taken the PCB off of the hard drive and inspected the other side for burn marks. (ensure your grounded when doing so)
Check the insulating foam in between also, sometimes you can see brown marks where major heat damage occurs.

That should get you started, take your time and don't rush into trying to fix it quickly if the data is important to you. You can cause
more damage and increase the possible recovery cost if you do decide to send it out so beware.

Check the TVS diodes marked in red
Check for short 0 Ohms
even if one of them is short it might load the PS
You can remove the shorted TVS diode and backup the data
May be later you can replace it to continue using the drive