This drive failed when I was using my computer. Suddenly, it started making clicking noise and then windows displayed a message saying something about volume unplugged. What's weired is that it's not making the standard *three* clicks. When it's powered-on it makes >4 clicks and then spins down, afterwards, it only makes *two* clicking noises and spins down and same again.

Any idea if it's PCB or heads? The day drive died was a pretty hot, what's the probability that it's the pcb?

Specs:
Model: WD5000KS-00MNB0
DCM: HBHCAJAH
Country: Malaysia (Jul 2006)

Back Label: 2061-701383-E00 AF
XS 3H16 0KA1 6 0005520 6525

Pcb ? Less than 5%

If this is your board ...

http://pcb-hdd.com/images/WD4000KS-00MN ... %20PCB.jpg

... then you will need to move the 8-pin serial flash memory chip to your replacement board. AIUI, the Marvell 88i6545-TFJ1 chip is often afflicted with a fault that mimics bad heads.

The following board supplier includes a free "ROM" transfer service:
http://www.donordrives.com/

Otherwise your local TV/AV repair shop should be able to do it for you.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

@fzabkar...I have a soldering gun so I could definitely give this a shot. Do you do this on regular basis with these WD drives? how sure are you that with these symptoms, that pcb is the issue? I just don't wanna waste money trying out a fix that has very little chance of working. Thanks!

I'm not a data recovery professional. All I can say is that a PCB swap is the easiest option ... if you want to try for that 5% chance. Otherwise if it's a head or media fault, then you will be looking at US$800 plus parts.

That said, the first thing I would try would be to clean up the preamp contacts on the PCB with a soft white pencil eraser.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

+1

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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

AIAI, it is fixable in 1 minute ... Ok, 2 minutes !