Hello everyone,

If anyone is interested to help me on this one...the drive is a WD5000AAKS and it's dead; no powering up, no spinning, no sounds, no vibration, no anything - dead. This didn't happen while using the drive, I just powered on the pc one day and the drive didn't power up.
I searched for a donor drive to swap the PCBs, found one and swapped the PCBs. With the new PCB the drive behaves normally; powers up fine, spins normally, no weird sounds or clicks or anything, but is still not recognized, either by the BIOS or the operating system.
So, I am asking for advice. I don't really care about the drive, I only intend to extract the data from it. Googling around I concluded that the drive is not recognized because the BIOS chip needs to be swapped too. Unfortunately, this drive doesn't store it's BIOS on a chip, as I figured, so no BIOS swapping is possible. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Another solution I found was to replace the TVS diodes on the dead board. I tested the resistance on the diodes that usually short out (D3, D4, R64, R67). I would appreciate some opinions on this one too.

The dead board looks completely normal except for some black (burnt?) traces, of which I am posting some photos.
Is there any hope of reviving this drive?
Everyone, thank you very much in advance for your time, I really appreciate any help.


Dead board photos:
http://imageshack.us/a/img845/2263/img2 ... 170953.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img89/9093/img20130509170921.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img341/7638/img2 ... 170916.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img441/1967/img2 ... 170854.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img24/6056/img20130509170850.jpg


Details:

Dead board:
2060-701477-002 REV A
(Sticker No.: 2061-701477-900 AD XT 4V10 U63T 8 0001160 8 161)
came from a WD5000AAKS-00YGA0

Replacement board:
2060-701477-002 REV A
(Sticker No.: 2061-701477-900 AD XT 4V10 F1F5 5 0003170 8 173)
came from a WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 as well

Resistance tests:
D3: out of range
D4: out of range
R64: 0.04 ohms
R67: 0.04 ohms

Refreshing... Very nice search on your end.

Indeed, no external ROM on this PCB model.

I would say to complement your research even more, simply test the components on the good PCB. Then test the damaged one. Same readings?!?

D4 is often the suspect on these guys.

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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

If diode(s) were shorted then plugging it into your power supply would result in the power supply shutting itself off (hopefully) or something catching on fire

I would recommend contacting forum member northwind to get it checked out

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

+1 Northwind

Good guy who knows what he's doing and reasonably priced.

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http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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@pazof,

The readings from resistance tests of those 4 components are normal (unfortunately yours doesn't show the common D4 problem which labtech mentioned).

You don't seem to have marked any specific traces on your photos, as being the black ones that you were concerned about. All I could see were some darker, tarnished, but unused pads next to the SRAM chip (these would only used if a slightly different SRAM chip was used in manufacturing) - those pads aren't causing your current problem.

If the data on the drive is unimportant and you just want to "play", then you'll find plenty of examples of voltage measurement advice in older postings - but you may still hit a dead-end, and you'll have taken risks along the way... If the data is important, and you don't want to take risks / waste time, then as other members have already said, I would highly recommend you contact northwind using their website you can see via the link which drc gave (you cannot send PMs yet, due to being a new member).

I can help with voltage measurements if you are prepared to do a post mortem analysis. Otherwise you can swap the PCB and look for a PCB adaptation service. Some PCB suppliers are offering a free adaptation service, but there are caveats. With the right tool, you can do your own adaptations.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

My opinion: ROM image corrupted. I had an 6400 aaks with similar symptoms, went with it to a dr pro who had restored the rom, but with a different version (he didn't found the original version and didn't knew that the ROM can be restored from the SA modules(!) ) so the drive started but was identified by bios as 0.0 GB.
Your drive doesn't start with the other PCB because the firmware checks it's version and most probably it doesn't match the version stored on the platters.
So you could try to rebuild the ROM image using the SA modules and write it back into the ROM, but you need the software to do that...

Sorry, then he is not a pro. That's basic knowledge for a pro, at least in knowing about it.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Everyone, thanks a lot for your time and answers.

Yes, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a diode issue...and unfortunately the data in the drive is important to me, so I cannot afford to experiment too much.

@Vulcan:
Yes, I was referring to the black traces near the RAM chip, that's the only physical trace I could spot on the board that seemed wrong. But if you say it cannot be causing this...

I gave a call to northwind, and I will go and discuss the issue with him too then, luckily he happens to be in the city where I live. I am amazed that you found an expert so near to me.

Meantime, I think I will try to transfer the ROM, and if that fails, I will gladly accept some help with measuring the other components on the board. I will also compare measurements between the two boards, as labtech suggested.
Thank you very much everyone, I will keep you updated. Appreciate the help, greetings from Greece.

The dark area near the SDRAM is just oxidisation. It appears to be the fallout from materials changes mandated by RoHS. You can clean it up by gently rubbing it with a soft pencil eraser, but it isn't necessary to do so.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you Spildit. I will see what I can do on my own and if I fail, we can surely talk about it. Of course I will pay for the shipping costs.

Hi everybody
I have dead WD5000AAKS and good WD5000AALS
Can you tell me please...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIPZtJyrVPw

If change head and pcb from good AALS to dead AAKS ... working this swap? Is it solution or no?

Best regards

No!

What do you mean "dead"?

Totally dead, or some clicking, or what?

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WD5000AAKS-22YGA0
power on ok
do no clinking, but not read and hdd regenerator scan ... all sectors bad. bios not detect, now
I do not have another original pcb

(my emphasis)

I think you should give more information about what you have done so far and how drive behaves at each point.

Did you change pcb? Did you open the drive?
Does it spin down?
How long did you leave it work with hdd regenerator?

Maybe heads are gone now, so game over for DIY.

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PCB not chnaged
Drive closed, not open
hdd regenerator run cca 5s, after see all bad, I breaking
spin up ok

It spins up ok, but does it spin down after a while?

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After cleaning pcb, bios detect hdd
In MHDD test... spin down ok, seek test failure .. is it fault PCB or head?




PCB?
I need only cca 10GB zip backup file from hdd

How to choose a course of action?

one head is gone here probably..
need better diagnose and almost sure a head swap.

And question

If I have good another model ... WD5000AALS

is it possible swap pcb and head with this model to WD5000AAKS?