To my horror when attempted to power up and connect to my Buffalo external hard drive, I heard a high pitched squealing noise with the dive not recognised by the computer. Opening up the casing I found the drive fitted inside to be a Samsung HD103UI 1TB 5400rpm 32M drive. When the power is connected, it takes a few seconds before the squealing happens, but at no time does the hard drive sound like it is spinning up to speed. Searching around I found a previous post for this drive on this forum relating to a faulty 5V zenner diode on the PCB, but measuring this it seems to be okay as does the 0 ohm resistor feeding it. When the power is applied to the board (via the buffalo PCB which acts as a step down PSU to give all the necessary voltage rails for the drive from the 12V DC power supply) measuring the 5V line, it is measuring 4.75V which I think is okay (please correct me if this needs to be bang on 5V). Whilst doing a bit of research into data recovery options various websites state that the PCBs are not interchangeable due to parameters stored in the ICs (don’t know how true this is or if they’re just trying to sell their services). I found a spare board available online which has the same part number and revision number as my PCB (BF-41-00206B R00) but the drive model is listed as HD103UJ. Will this PCB be compatible with my drive or is it going to be a waste of money? I really need to recover the data off this drive as it contains lots of family photos. Any advice greatly appreciated, thanks.

I am sorry to say this one. But you will spend money, time, and who knows what else to try this one. There is a person right there in UK who can give you a free diagnostic on this HDD and repair it for you. I am sure it will be very close to the price to buy all this stuff and still not have your data on it. Try and contact PCImage here on the forum or visit his site on this one. It is a wise move and can not cost much more than all the boards and things that you will purchase and not be able in the end to have back your data.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Changing the PCB isnt going to help. Its almost certainly an internal fault.

If it is spinning at all (which I assume it is as it is "squealing") then you are barking up the wrong tree with PCB.

Assuming it has internal issues, every time you power it up you are causing more and more damage, drastically lessening chances of recovery.

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PC Image Data Recovery
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Okay, thanks for the info. I assumed it was a spindle motor drive fault as the noise seemed to be coming more from the PCB rather than the drive itself.