Right, I've decided to take a look at my next long used drive which is showing a few strange problems. The drive had all its data copied and no need to recover data, just want to get the drive working again because of the cost when I bought it. Want to use it too its full usage and it was fairly reliable all this time.

Apart from some bad sectors at the end of the drive the disk has worked fine.

But intermitely when the drive goes into sleep mode by the computer and then woken up, the drive will sometimes:

Spin up, but click two or three times with the heads before becoming ready. This pauses the system slighty for 10 seconds before it wakes everything up, or the computer crashes.

The drive cannot spin the motor for a while. But after a cool down, or after several attempts at a reset, the drive will spin up as usual.

The Images for the PCB are included. I expect the SMOOTH Controller or a regulator might be on its way out due to heat issues. What I want to know is there a way to find out what component is dieing and can it be replaced. Also would it be possible to replace this PCB with a more updated and modern PCB with the same chip configuration and firmwhere.

Replacement PCB for this drive is priced rather silly and if I can get one cheaply I would, but only if its worth it before replacing something like a silly regulator will make it work normally again.

Shane