Hello,

I had a hdd go bad. I got a donordrive and cost the customer $254.00 for the drive. I swapped teh PCB at first and the new drive powered up. I though YES! its going to work. Of course it wasnt recognizable.

I swapped the Windbond Bios chip. Did an excellent solder job and now it doesnt power on again. What did I do wrong??

Jon

Maybe the chip is bad?

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Yeah that is what I was thinking.

When I removed the chip from the donor board, the legs broke off ( I took off the chip from the bad PCB just fine, go figure).

Am I screwed?

Platter swap his last option??

Jon

Very rare for a rom on this model to die on its own, in fact I've never seen it.

If you managed to break the legs off the donor chip, there's a reasonable chance you've damaged something else too.

Platter swap is 100% wrong and will NOT help at all, why would it?

You best bet in this case is to advise your customer (as from your wording i assume you are working with and gambling with somebody elses drive/data) to seek pro assistance, which probably wouldn't have cost much more than the $254 you shelled out for parts anyway, before you damage the drive beyond recovery.

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AND THEN...



I wouldn't define it an "excellent solder job" as the legs broke off. So I would suspect the first chip was either already damaged or damaged during ' swap '

Anyway, assuming you find someone that want to carry out the job, it is still possible (at least I speak for me) to get data out of the drive , the only issue can be a physical damage.
But summing up the price of the "donor" and the intervention, it's going to cost quite a lot of money.

Good luck.

Ok I think you misunderstood what i said.
First I tested the donor drives PCB on the customers HDD and it powered on.

1.) I took the chip off the bad PCB just fine ( no damage)
2.) I tried to remove the chip from the donor drive (to move the bad PCB Bios to it) and the legs broke off.
a.) oh well as I need that chip off anyways as its useless in this case
3.) I soldered on the original BIOS chip to the new PCB
4.) No power now

My solder abilities has nothing to do with removing of chips by the way.

What about your desoldering ability? How can you break legs of off the chip if your technique is sound?

Are you sure the chip is oriented correctly . . . that you haven't turned it around 180 degrees?

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The first chip cam off just fine. Clean separation from legs to board.

Yes the chip is oriented correctly.

Math do not add up. Anyway, as it is not your drive, tell the customer to be patient while you do a proper diagnose and/or outsource.
P.s. Why move the flash ?

What do you mean math doesn't add up?

If I find a bios chip can I replace it and try again?

Any suggestions instead of critisisms

I mean something went not exactly as you told, in my opinion. Second part : you read somewhere on the internet that you had to swap the chip in order to make it work. If I tell you that I don't want the pcb at all when it is damaged and drive sent for recovery, does it ruin the day?

So your telling me I don't have to swap it?

I mean that you didn't make a proper diagnose, and that maybe there was more than 1 problem.

Very possible yes but I put the new pcb on the hdd and it worked except reading the hdd. Reading inherent that I needed to do the bios swap so I did.

Anyone have useful advice now?
Next step?

You said your HDD went bad. Can you elaborate on this?

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A coworkers cousin has the hdd that one day so stopped powering on. Did days of research on here and other forums. Was suggested to purchase donor drive or board to match pcb model number. Only one I could find was the drive itself for 254 dollars.

I told the guy he buys the drive with no guarantee to fix it. He agreed.

I ordered the drive. Swapped the pcb. I plugged in the drive and it powered on and spun. I did not try to read the drive as I didn't know what would happen if I left the bios chip installed.

I then carefully removed the bios chip. From the donor pcb I tried to remove the chip to make room for the original chip and it didn't cooperate,the legs broke off. I thought, oh well and cleaned up the pads. I soldered on the customers bios chip and oriented it correctly. Verified all connection were good with the multimeter.

I plugged in the drive to power only and nothing.

My stomach just sank.

That's about it.

Thanks
Jon

I understand
So, again maybe the original chip went bad even before you replaced it
The chip contains important information but lucky for you - that information is not that vitally critical for the drive and can be replaced
Unfortunately you only option now would be professional data recovery. This recovery requires knowledge in Samsung drives internals and tools that you not possess

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I said it on post #5 on the thread... . At this stage, anyway, both drives can be fixed.

So who do you suggest I tell them to send this hdd too?

Anyone?