Hi all,
first of all thanks for this forum. It disclosed me a new world, I was not aware of the complexity of data recovery from HD. Now I realize why data recovery from failed HD can be so expensive.

My best friend had this drive failed a few days ago. The HTPC where the drive was mounted was powered on (for at least 2-3 days) and then suddenly he found the system crashed. After reboot he found the WD5000AADS no more recognized by BIOS. The other drive mounted in that PC (a WD10EADS)is still working fine.

He obviously tried to remove the drive and check it connected to another port, in an external box and in another PC, without success. The drive appear to start but it seems it doesn't complete the boot phase and it's not recognized by BIOS.
I attached to this post the recording of the sound produced by the drive, can you please check if helps in understanding what's wrong?

I must say also that my friend, having another drive with a pcb apparently identical, didn't resist and tried to swap the PCBs. It seems the drive reacted in a different way but obviously not worked. Did this attempt compromise data?

Attached you will find also the photo of the PCB (that we hope it's failed..).

Can you advise? The drive contains valuable personal data (photo and documents mainly).
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Gianfranco

One swaping out PCB will cause the drive to click and heads to not seek correctly because the PCB contains adaptive data for this drive stored in the sprom. You will need to swap out the eprom to read drive correctly.

Second you problem is not in the PCB but in the drive itself. You might have a failing head on this drive. Advise not possible for you to swap out heads. Two this could be an issue in the SA and some critical modules damaged. Again not possible for you to repair this one. You have to have this diagnosed correctly before it can be repaired. You do not have the know how or knowledge to do this one and the only way to do this is from a professional DR company.

You are located in Italy and can recommand that you contact BlackST here on the forum and send him your drive. He is a valued member here and can hand this for you. You will need professional tools in order to diagnose this problem correctly. Any attempt to try DIY on this one will only fail if you do not understand how the WD drive works. If you value this data and it is important to you are you say it is then you will need a DR company with the proper tools to work on this drive. Good luck

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Iorana Haraharaini

Based on WD repairs and clicking drive I have found that in some drives the problems are in the SA and by setting the HDD to safe mode and loading LDR file I can fix this one. Other drives have clicked due to ROM corruptions and can cause the same clicking sound that is here on this one. Again setting the drive to Safe mode and loading LDR this one can be worked on. Some drives have just a PCB issue that will cause this one from the onboard clock and cause this clicking sound. Others is damaged PCB. Some are preamp in heads. This one is a guess on what is the actual problem on this one. One thing that can be done is give the PCB a good cleaning and try it again. If the drive spins up then this is a dirty PCB. If not then you can try a PCB swap and move the ROM to the new board. If this still does not work then your heads could be bad. But to not spend all this time and guess work I would suggest to try and see a professional in your area to get the drive looked at with proper tools and a proper diagnostic of the problem. WD can be tricky drives to work on and one time it can be a problem in the SA that causes this one, the next PCB and yet another heads. From all of this there is other possibilities to this problem and a proper diagnostic should be in order before damage is done to the drive. If the heads are actually bad then starting the drive over and over again will or can cause platter damage on this one. I had a IT company send in a WD drive to me that they used a recovery software on the drive for 6 days and the drive was making the same noice as yours. Well when the drive was opened up the drive was so full of dust and the platter were so badly damaged that this could not be fixed no matter how bad the customer wanted back his data. Any attempt with software and starting drives that clicks always is a risk for the dirve even if it is a PCB issue or something else.

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Iorana Haraharaini

No comment ..... And by the way, the drive is spinning .... And J1 are the contacts to the Head Assembly inside the drive not to the spindle .....[/quote]

I think I will leave all the answers up to you to answer for now on. There seems to be no reason to give an answer here on the forum anylonger. You seem to know all the answers and all the fixes so please answer all the questions here and I will kindly back off and leave the forum to you.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Almost every one we see with this symptom is heads-related. A bad PCB is a possibility, but the "odds" are that it's not the PCB. Of course, there are exceptions to everything . . .

Jon

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

According to what I hear in recorded sound file, drive calibrates and start to load FW but cann't finish. Preamp, head(s), modules issue... who knows, it can be anything of that.

i have listen the sound and even if i think it is not good to record a sound after you find out that the drive is failing and producing bad/not normal noises (better was to stop immediatly and make proper diagnose with proper tools and know-out) for SURE it is not a do it yourself task, and for sure more you will power-up your drive more data loss will occour or you will demage definetly some unique modules on service area and than is game over.

Buona Fortuna.

Good Luck.

Hi, sorry for getting back after a few days.

First of all we would like to thank everybody for the advice. We understand the advantages of professional recovery services but we would try another attempt. We tried to clean the J1 contacts with a rubber without success.

Now we would like to try the change of the PCB swaping the chip in U12.
For this we thought 2 options:
1. use the PCB from the another disk, a WD10EADS (that is still working). The details of this disk are the following: model WD10EADS-00P8B0, DCM HHRNHV2MA, DCX 0007P1W81. I attached 2 pictures of this PBC.
2. buy this PCB from ebay: http://www.ebay.it/itm/PCB-Controller-2060-701640-002-WD5000AADS-00M2B0-Festplatten-Elektronik-/230931715690?pt=DE_Elektronik_Computer_Computer_Festplatten&hash=item35c49a566a&_uhb=1#ht_526wt_957.
Which one is the best? Is the PCB from the WD10EADS suitable?

In the initial post I forgot to mention all the details of the failed disk:
model WD5000AADS-00M2B0, DCM HHRCNT2CH, DCX 0009M1W23.

Advice is always appreciated.

Again, thank you.

Gianfranco

Don't want to hurt anyone but couldn't resist this time. You already did one mistake with your assumption , and you are doing 2nd one in same topic . Don't you ever seen desperate customers when they lost their data forever coz this unprofessional help ?

Spending money to buy another PCB for this drive is total wasting time and money .
jono-ats was right about most possible issue .

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Angel Data Recovery

Sorry, would not want to discredit your belief to these "knowledge gods" (Donor parts and PCB - traders) but 90% of what they say is BS . Especially funny about DCM matching, this ancient trick finished on Caviars.

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Angel Data Recovery

In real Medicine, you would lost your license in this case.
This is not a casino . Please , if you not sure in something don't tell anything better pass it. Main reason : "If you can't help - don't do worst"
You have still too much learn "little grasshopper" , before to teach others.
This case is not PCB related issue , openposter definitly will lost his money buying anything anywhere. If he can't afford about 500Eu for pro. data recovery help , better keep this drive unatouchable till better times.

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Angel Data Recovery

When such bold and direct statements appear in discussions about donors, or other technical issues, I take it for granted that this is based on the poster's personal experience. This is the most useful feedback any person requesting information can receive. Someone has tested, and he/she confirms it works fine.

On the other hand if the statement is purely based on 3rd party information, then it is better supply a link to the this information. Then the requester can read, and make up his own mind. In some cases further googling will reveal different advices.

This is of course simply IMHO. But providing precise and clear information in our posts will benefit everybody on this forum.

Hi guys. We decided to take the risk and ordered a PCB.
The PCB arrived and we tried the PCB swap "as is". As expected it didn't worked(win a lottery is really difficult !).
Today we swapped the U12 chip as well and there is both good and bad news:
1. the disk is now recognized in BIOS and it started working almost normally (no more strange noises apparently);
2. the File system is not recognized and Windows says it needs initialization.
Can you please advise on how to proceed?

Again, thanks for advice from all of you.

G

First clone your drive, then run a logical recovery software to retrive your files...like: R-Studio, Get Data Back...or similar.

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

Thanks mr_spokk!
How would you clone it? We have another disk (but it's different 1 TB ) and we could try.
To be honest my knowledge in logic recovery is limited to Easy Recovery tool.

Cheers,

G

Good work!!!

Hi guys,
we tried to use a recovery software (R-Studio). Unfortunately it gives only I/O errors (1117) and find no data.
Any other option or advice?
Thanks,

G

Hi Spildit, thanks for your precious support.

Let me reply to your questions:
1. No, we can't clone the drive at all. We tried but the software we used (R-Studio) remains stuck for days without detecting anything and giving error only I/O errors (1117). Unfortunately our first attempt stopped after 3 days with a black-out (lucky guys here ) and we didn't try anymore;
2. The noise appear normal (no more clicking noise), please check the attached audio recording;
3. MCU name is the same only for the first row, see the first pic in the initial post and the attached pic. Original PCB MCU code is 88i9045-TFJ2 P1B5230.1 0941 A1P, new PCB MCU is 88i9045-TFJ2 P1X4220.3 1011 B0P;
4. Drive name reported both on BIOS and OS is WDC WD5000AADS-00M2B0, the same as printed on the HD label.
We downloaded MHDD tool, we are goin to try to read the surface, we'll let you know.

Cheers,

G

@ decru

But data is important? becouse leaving drive for days waiting a software can clone it...it is a mistake.

Here you the audio recording and the new pcb pic...