I have an HD103SJ from 2010.04. Recently around May of 2011, the drive ended up dying because I made a noob mistake. The same day my HD103SJ died, my SSD also died, I was confused at first and stupidly turned my computer on and off in hopes that it was just a small issue that a restart would fix. Next thing you now, of the three drives installed, only one of the three was deteced by BIOs. Nothing happens when I plug sata power and data into the drive. I've measured the 5V, 12V diodes and resistor with digital multimeter on 200 ohms. I also tested the vcores and vneg on 20VDC. By testing it, I ended up getting weird numbers, and the 5V tvs diode was clearly dead. I removed it and the drive still did not work. Upon further examination, the resistor appears to have been damaged a little. I then purchased another HD103SJ in hopes that a PCB swap fix would work since with this specific Hard drive it is either a hit or miss. After I received the new drive, I swapped PCBs and the drive spins but unfortunately is not detected by the BIOS. I understand the reasons why it doesn't spin because of firmware and such. However, I would like to get some other people's opinion on the matter. I've come to the conclusion that my drive has surely suffered a logical failure and not a mechanical failure, which has given me some hopes in restoring the drive. I know that the logical thing would be to send it to a professional DR company but I don't have the money or knowledge of what are good and reliable DR companys that won't rip you off. Here are a few pictures, one of the dead drive, and one of the drive that works. I'd like to get some professional's opinions on the matter. Would it be possible to get a DR company to repair my hard drives PCB and get it working? Or do they generally charge the customer no matter what the issue is if the data is recoverable? Sorry for the wall of text and if I was not clear on anything.

Working PCB


Dead PCB

Have to transfer unique adaptive information from the bad pcb to the donor pcb. Should be one of the 8 leg chips. Need a higher resolution picture to the able.to tell which one.

I somewhat understand your fear of being ripped off, however with a bit of research in understanding what companies are reputable or not you can find a good place to send it to.

A reputable good company should not overcharge.

If you would like to specify your location, members on the forums may provide you some references.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Ah, I see, so I should take a better picture of the 8 leg chips? Also I'm from the USA, east coast specifically.

Those are two pictures of the dead PCB.




These are two pictures of the working PCB.

Dead PCB

winbond
25X40ALNIG
10Q2

STJ009
004J

Working PCB

ESMT 100
F25L04PA
C00BS
1037

STJ009
110J

The winbond 25X40ALNIG is the chip that needs swapping over to the working pcb

Loki

I'm not that knowledgeable in HDD related stuff but can you please tell me the whole reason for this? I understand that labtech has stated that the chip contains unique adaptive information. I presume these chips contain well, the unique adaptive information that is unique to each board drive correct? From the bits of information that I've read and also learned, what about the TVS diodes? Is the reason the dead pcb died is because of a power surge? By transferring the winbond chip to the working pcb, it would make the dead drive be recognized by bios? Sorry for asking so many questions but I'd just like to understand what happened so I know not to make the same mistakes twice and take better precautions . Also, any American HDD guru members, if you know of any services that can transfer such a chip, please message me, unless I have only DR companies to rely on, I would like to know where I can get a professional to do this. I am in no way qualified to swap a chip as such.

Insufficient info to say surge specifically, but since you say that your SSD (presumably in the same PC?) "died" too, then a DC overvolt condition of some kind seems a reasonable hypothesis. A good PSU would not have allowed such a condition to occur, if that hypothesis is correct.

You originally said that you diagnosed a problem with the 5V TVS, but again, insufficient details supplied of that or the other tests that you did, to allow others to form any conclusions.


Hopefully, yes - that is why those members earlier in the thread are suggesting it. However, from experiences shared here, it is also possible that damage has occurred to the preamp, if its negative supply was also affected. Therefore there isn't a guarantee of success using a replacement PCB (& adaptive swap).


A more complete diagnosis of the faulty PCB (from someone suitably qualified, who has the PCB in front of them) may help you to answer that question. IMHO there have to be concerns about the PSU in that PC.

Yes my SSD and HDD both happened to die at about the same time. I posted about my issue first at toms hardware.. You're indeed correct, the PSU in my PC is a Kingwin 1000Watt Lazer and it is working fine right. I've been using it for the past four months with some crossfiring here and there and so far, nothing seems wrong. Yet again, you're correct that concern should be had about the PSU I have.

Winbond chip it is.

Like I stated before, do a bit of research online and on the phone. Call in some companies and ask some key questions. Talking and even evaluations at reputable companies should be free.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts