Hi,
I have two of those hdds with an accident involving sparks and smoke, resulting in burned PCB, specifically Motor IC.

I bought identical PCBs and had the BIOS chips transferred into them at electro shop.

After I connected them, hdds seem to run, but system BIOS only detects their correct name and displayed size is 0 bytes. Windows detects them as not-initialized drives.

Obviously BIOS IC is not transferred or working correctly, or perhaps some other issue. Contacts dont looks too clean either, but the PCBs should be new..

Any hints on what else could be tried to make this work?

Well I have just noticed that both hdds will after start click few times and then spin-down. Still recognized in system though.

This probably means some other problem than BIOS/firmware chip (??).

Odds of fixing this are probably not very good then.

Yes, both had chips on it before swap.

I cant be sure PCBs I bought are 100% working or compatible, but PCB Sticker and PCB Revision match. BIOS IC seem to be transferred correctly.

Damaged PCBs with BIOS chip removed.



Donor PCBs with BIOS chip transferred.


Can professionals determine whether it is PCB or pre-amp issue? If so how feasible is fixing the pre-amps?

By the way, my priority is not data recovery, but drives alone. Though I'd glad if data could be saved too.

agreed, most likely pre-amp.

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I have replied earlier, with some pictures. It said post need to be verified.

Anyways, does pre-amp failure means drives are basically unusable?

Obviously. Thing is data on it are not worth THAT much, I'm more interested in saving drives themselves.

Probably not feasible. Thanks for replies.

Check the resistances of the TVS diodes. You will probably find that the 5V TVS diode is shorted.

Catastrophic failures in Western Digital PCBs:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 119&p=5033

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A backup a day keeps DR away.