I'm new here, and very new in HDD diagnostics. I tried searching the forums for my answer, but it's pretty hard to find something if you don't really know all the jargon yet.

My laptop HDD suddenly died on me (about two weeks ago)
No sound/noise, no kernel messages on power up (via usb), nothing.

Not knowing much, just a little, about hdd recovery I figured it might be the PCB.
So I ordered a new (same) PCB on DonorDrives. Same Drive, same PCB revision, same Firmware.

Received it yesterday, installed it.
Hoping (more or less expecting) it would work because I had a same firmware replacement. (don't you just love my simple thinking )
No luck...
It spins up (yay!) but then about 5 pretty hard clicks and spindown after about 5-10 seconds.

Found in the guides from DonorDrives I might need to swap the firmware chip.
But before going that road I want to check here if the symptoms match that solution.

Or should I diagnose the old PCB more thoroughly first?
(Need a usb-ttl adapter then I suppose)

Hi, you don't need any adapter. Just swap the 8-legged ROM chip and you should be ok.

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

Ok, thanks!

But now I want to know what exactly is happening right now, why won't the drive work. Whats the clicking (I know, the heads, but what are they doing, and why is it louder than normal seeking?)

My (minimally) educated guess is:
The firmware chip is flashed in factory, contains some drive specific information. It spins, and starts looking for something on the drive (the actual firmware?)
Why can't it find it? is it not in the same location on every drive? (Like a dedicated part, the most inner ring of the first platter or something)
Or does the firmware chip contain something like head-alignment correction data or something (I can imagine every drive is unique in a way.)

You see, I'm curious. Found some information already, but it's not a broad discussed topic on the internet you know...

So, swapped the firmware chip..
Now it spins up, for a second. Then spins down immediately.

It is recognized by the pc now... sort of.
It gives me a 4,14 GB size... it is 500 GB however.

What went wrong?

So... I suddenly noticed something. The last letter on the PCB sticker did not match with the original one.
original: 100537099 M, new: 100537099 L
PCB revision is the same, but controller chip (?) is different...
So i figured I'd just order another one... gambling away here guys!

7200.4 typically do not have PCB issues.
Clicking comes from the motion resulted by the reading mechanism moving back and forth. Why does it move bacm and forth without simply reading data? Likely because the read-write mechanism failed.

This model drive is very sensitive to media damage in my experience. So, the more it is tinkered with in a failed mode, the more chances of causing media damage.

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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

Well... I still suspect the PCB, because the original PCB didn't even spin it up. The replacement did, but it wouldn't load the firmware or something. And after swapping the firmware chip, I could hear the heads move normally for a second, it just spins down before even fully spinning up.
It's not critical data or something, If I can recover some things it would be great, but definitely not worth to send it in to a recovery specialist.

So I'm gonna tinker away....

If in the meantime anyone can tell me more about what was happening, or how I could find out, I would be glad to hear!

I would say that the problem is a bad preamp caused by PCB failure, assuming....

1. Drive was totally dead in the first place (no noise at all)
2. Drive spun up OK with new PCB (without ROM transfer) but clicked (these drives keep very specific info in the ROM, even the serial number!)
3. After ROM transfer the drive spins up with no clicking or sweeping noises, but incorrect ID.

Obviously this is sight unseen, so just and educated guess and needs proper diagnosis.

As labtech says, these drives ARE prone to MD, but usually they beep and click when this is the case, but not always

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

No sound/noise - How did you establish this the very first time you tested?

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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

pcimage is correct!

Looks like with the new PCB it loads the firmware (i believe i can hear the heads for a milisec).
But the firmware does not match the PCB (Although it is the same revision, the number PCB sticker is not identical, as stated in my earlier post)

When the disk broke, it just stopped. (think it never woke from a Idle state) No sound nothing. Just the spinning BBOD (Beach Ball Of Death, I'm on a Mac)
Hard power down, power up, no spinup, nothing. I noticed it immediately, normally I would hear it spin up. Then I immediately put my ear to the palmrest where the disk is, it was completely silent, no clicks whatsoever.

I think the problem is hardware, related to the read-write mechanism. I am not convinced yet it was a PCB issue.

My best suggestion would be to try to get a sense of the problem via terminal output. Can use the search function on this.

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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

Yes, a terminal output would tell us a lot!

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

If you can provide pictures of the original PCB board that failed this might help locate what happened. If the hard drive suffered some over voltage, or something simple as a small fuse might have blown. Replacing these small components might work and bring your drive back to life.

Since the drive spins up okay with the new board, and something is read, I think there is a compatibility somewhere. If we can determine what went wrong with the original board, then it might just be a simple fix.

Shane

That would require a serial connection I suppose...
Any good usb to serial/tty adapters you can recommend?

this one works perfectly:
http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/pl2303-usb-to-ttl-module

I can never find the sparkfun page for the same thing, it is annoying..

Arduino can work and if you have a Bus Pirate you can use that too in USB - serial bridge mode, I have done it, it is very easy.