Hi,

I have here a Toshiba USB 3.0, 2.5'' hard drive which received an electrical shock.
The board was tested and is dead.

I could find what I think being a compatible SATA board:
- The drive model name is same (excepted the fifth letter: U for USB and A for SATA).
- The locations of the holes and miscellaneous chips look at the same locations on the USB and SATA boards.
- The model of the MCU (Marvell) chip is same.

The company selling the SATA board also offers the transfer of the IC602 BIOS Chip
and for each PCB lists the two last blocks from the hard drive serial number.
For instance: HDKFD02AYAA31

Are those parameters like the DCM (Drive Configuration Matrix) of WD drives or do they also code for chips from the PCB other than the MCU and which positions should be taken into account when looking for donnor PCB ?

What about the drive rev. (mine is AZA AA00/AY000U) ?
Should I ask for it too ?

What about the sticker with the 4-digits (eg. 0780) on the back of the PCB ?

Last question:
Although the risk is low, if the patient PCB (donnor of the BIOS chip) is lost during transport, is there still a way to use a new PCB, program the BIOS chip and "calibrate" the drive using professional data recovery equipment (PC-3000, a.s.o.)?
I'm thinking to the drive adaptative parameters like microjogs, a.s.o.

The purpose is of course recovering the data more than repairing the drive.

Thanks.

for PCB replacement look for the PCB printed number example: G003235C (and of course you have to swap the ROM chip (i.e. IC602 chip))

nothing you can do

Of course, the PCB number is important.
As told, I want to replace the PCB from USB type to SATA type.

It's a G3448A from the 14mm thick MQ01UBB200 (USB 3.0).
I assume that the PCB G003235C from the 2TB MQ01ABB200 (SATA) is compatible, although I could find no testimonials.

I also observe that drives of smaller capacities have PCBs with the same layout (type and location of chips). For instance:
1.5 TB : MQ01ABB150 (14 mm thick too)
1.0 TB : MQ01ABB100
0.5 TB : MQ01ABB050

They're possibly cheaper. However, I'm not sure that their PCBs could work.
For instance, PCB or large drives may require more RAM, a.s.o.
Someone tested this ?

Thanks.

I think you'll need to match more than just the model number to go from USB to SATA. I would probably also try to match as much of the hard drive code that's under the model number as I can too. I've done that for read/write heads and had good success, so I'd assume the PCB's would also be compatible in a case like that.

Even among the same model number you can have different SATA PCB's.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

all those numbers doesn't say anything, what matters is the chips on the PCB

again, the layout is not important the chips on PCB is

I agree, but if you carefully look at photos from PCB you can sometimes easily reject the wrong ones
(for instance the motor connectors not being at the same location).


Well, I prefer when the chips art at the same location as well as the motor connectors and the screw holes ...


The MCU chip is listed by hdd-parts.com and it is often of the same model.
Should also the spindle/motor controller be the same for Toshiba mobile drives?
I agree, but the chips on the PCB are often not listed by sellers.

I started here some serial number reverse engineering for Toshiba drives:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32197