Hey guys,
A few months ago a seagate 1TB drive (ST31000520AS, Firmware:CC32) of mine failed and whilst attempting to repair it,i found a replacement PCB for it.However,due to work i have been postponing this task and now i have lost the original PCB and i also learnt that the original PCB is needed to recover the data on the drive(due to unique firmware or something).

So what I'm asking is it possible to recover data from a seagate drive with only a replacement PCB?

If "attempting to repair it" means that you sent the drive to a data recovery company and maybe declined their services, then do you know if they were able to save the ROM from the PCB?

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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

To be really honest, i gave it to the place where i bought it from (not my best decision) and those guys did nothing except return the hard drive without the PCB.so now i have only the hard drive and not the original PCB.so i was thinking whether it would be possible to restore the hard drive with just a PCB swap?

For me it is possible, just more annoying...

Only a PCB swap is not possible due to unique adaptives as you mentioned.
Only a very advanced data recovery professional could, potentially.
Heads up, it will be expensive.

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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

Isn't there anyway i can get a copy of the firmware from the web?
(i've heard that the unique data could be generated from something or whatever)

No. It's unique. There is no copy.

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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

Aaaaaaahhh... Anyway there's plenty of FW backup around... what you can do with it is another story.

Just to clarify, there is no like copy on another drive that you could copy from.

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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

Why did that other company keep the pcb? Why dont you go and ask them to return it to you?

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

No recovery can be done without original ROM. At least with today's experience. Original PCB contains vital information for this kind of drive. Find the original PCB... The weird thing is that your data is on the Disk and most probably it's healty. But you can't get it until you find the unique key that relies in the original PCB.

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Data Recovery in Greece for 250euro + parts.

NOT TRUE.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

NOT TRUE.

As I see it, the company who lost your PCB has put themselves in a bad spot and they should be paying for the professional lab to recover your data now that it is much more complicated and compensate you, should the data end up being unrecoverable without the original PCB. Whether that will happen, it won't hurt to try.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Dimitris and BlackST,
You implied that there is a way to get data from a 7200.11 o 7200.12 without original ROM ? Wow! That sounds extremely interesting.

In similar cases, we have tried to get many donors with similar characteristics and use their rom. Very poor results to few of the drives. We managed to access some parts but user data was full of unread and bad sectors. So no guaranteed method from my side using trial and error and using hell of a lot of similar drives. Pc3k team has informed me that maybe this feature will be available in the future but no estimates. So for the momment, i consider such a method not guaranteed and very expensive to apply again. Too much time wasted and poor results.

So how you are planning to get or find the unique adaptives in ROM in such drives to access surface when the original adaptives are lost?

i have 4 seagate drives (both 7200.11 and 7200.12) 500GB and 1TB that the PCBs are lost (including ROMs).

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Data Recovery in Greece for 250euro + parts.

http://www.donordrives.com/hard-drive-p ... swap-match says this:

PCB Requirements for Barracuda HDD Architecture. There is no need for chip transfer or firmware reprogramming. Simple PCB swap is enough to fix the hard drive.

(U Series X (U5, U7), 5400.1 (C1, C2), Barracuda I/II/II/IV/V, Barracuda 7200.7/7200.8/7200.9/7200.10, ES, Momentus 4200.2/5400.3/5400.4/7200.1/7200.2).

1. Full Model Number. Example: ST9640320AS, ST31000528AS
2. Firmware. Example: 3.CDA, 9.01, 8.05


PCB Requirements for F3 HDD Architecture

(Barracuda 7200.11/7200.12/5400.6, ES2, Momentus 5400.5/7200.3) and newer. Most likely chip transfer will be needed.

1. Full Model Number. Example: ST9640320AS, ST31000528AS
2. PCB Sticker or PCB Number. Example: 100572173 E, 100438797, 100536286 REV E, 100535537 REV A
3. Optional - Closest Firmware Available to increase chances of PCB to work right away with no chip swap. Example: CC44, 0005HPM1

Ideas few AND confused...

My initial question was about 7200.11 and 7200.12 only.
I have tried several times to match p/n & firmware revision but still it can't access user data as from my experience.
We had twice, the luck to read some sectors, but the result was not good as more than 80% of the sectors were not reading correctly and it was not due to heads.

So what i say, is that the process to recover a Seagate 7200.11/12 drive without original ROM is VERY expensive. If client pays for donors we can try of course. But success rates are low. So any other more specific areas we should look into from BlackST or Northwind?

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Data Recovery in Greece for 250euro + parts.

i just found this http://www.donordrives.com/seagate-1tb- ... 5-pcb.html (from the link loki posted above)
it has the same firmware number and the same pcb number (i remember it since i searched endlessly for it earlier)

is there any chance that this might work (despite all what you guys said above)?

as for getting the original pcb back,well i asked for it and they had lost it and there were burn marks on the PCB (likely a simple replacement of a fuse or TVS)and here that counts as a voiding of the warranty.and that guy took it to give it a shot at repairing it himself (since hard drive recovery services are unheard of in sri lanka)well i guess it safe to say i wont be getting the original PCB back at any rate

BlackST, Hello,


I need your services can you writeme your email to my email alejoq2007@gmail.com?