Just got a drive from a customer - he spilled milk into his computer and it's a mess. I guess the pcb has died, but I don't usually work with hdd's so I'm not 100% sure. He's a regular, so I figured I could help him save some money fixing it for him by replacing the pcb.

Read somewhere that this can't be done withouth moving the pcb bios to a working pcb, but is this always the case? What will happen if I were to just replace the pcb with a new one (which I found online) and plug it into my computer?

According to your ques: You can try straight SWAP, if ROM version is same, then it will work, if version is different, then it will not work and non-destructive try. Then you can SWAP the ROM also if required at the end.

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SHAHI
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What if the ROM is broken?

How can I make sure I get the same version?

Great tutorial! I think I'm a little over my head here, so I guess it will be simpler to just send it to a company that are experts in the area. Thanks for the help.

What would you charge to fix this, btw? Not that I will be sending it to you, I'd just like to compare the prices. It's really expensive in my country.

What is the BF41 number on the PCB?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Haven't tried removing the ROM - I don't even know which of the chips that is.

BF41 - 00354b 01.

Other things written on it: WC REV.6 20130928 U3A 0BGN; M8_REV.06; Topsearch 94v-0 TS-M-8V02C SG; 1 308 C-20147 30-03

It's the "BIOS IC":

http://ep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-144375849714 ... b-fw-9.gif
http://www.hdd-parts.com/13102682.html

Unless you've done this before, I recommend that you get someone else to do the chip swap.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hmm would be interesting to just test a new PCB and see if it works without moving the bios.. I can't break anything doing that, right, it would just be unreadable? Worst case is that it jus won't work? But what do I do if the bios is broken as well, data rec services should be able to recover the data anyway, right?

Thanks for the good info, you're really helping me out here.

Do you know of a place in the UK or other places in nordthern Europe where I can buy the piece I need?

Bump

search on www.ebay.co.uk

I did, but I kinda worry I'll buy the wrong one..