Id first like to introduce myself. I'm Rob. Now to the issue at hand. This is my first attempt at anything related to fixing components and my experience is minimal but you gotta start somewhere right.

So I have a Seagate Barracuda desktop (internal) drive. About a year ago it stopped reading and it was clicking. Just recently I decided to try to fix it myself... Here are the specs on the drive.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (750 GB)
S/N - 9QK0ET4W
ST3750330AS
P/N - 9BX156-568
Firmware - SD81
Date Code - 08387
Site Code - KRATSG

PCB - UJAJ-6
PCB 100466824
REV B

I purchased a donor drive based on a website that told me which numbers to match up and finding a date code within 3 months of my original... The drive I purchased has the following specs...

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (750 GB)
S/N - 9QK0vewa
ST3750330AS
P/N - 9BX156-303
Firmware - SD1A
Date Code - 08517
Site Code - KRATSG

PCB - UJAJ-6
PCB 100466824
REV C

I guess I should have tried a PCB board swap with a BIOS chip swap on a donor board and see if that would have helped... but i tend to make life difficult and instead I swapped the head stack from the donor drive to my original drive.. Im no professional but I think i successfully installed the heads without them touching and not slapping down on the platters. So i put everything back together and I'm getting the same results. Clicking but not the same as how the drive originally clicked. None the less its clicking.

I figured maybe I need to try a PCB swap/bios swap onto a donor board which I just ordered and it should be here tomorrow..

So now my question is this.

1) Is my original drive rejecting the transplanted heads?
2) Its clicking like previously so can I assume its the PCB?
3) What are my options aside from sending it out for possibly recovery?

Id like to do this myself but Im not sure what my next move should be.. Ive read stuff where people jump certain parts of the drive or make special connectors to recover data..

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Rob

On a side note... My ORIGINAL drive with the donor heads is sitting on the side while i wait for the donor PCB to come in the mail tomorrow... So i decided to just do a little experiment.

I took the donor drive and swapped in the junky heads from my ORIGINAL drive just to experiment. I was almost certain nothing would come of it.. not the case.

(SIDE NOTE - Drive powers up and clicks a few times then stops... I believe it shuts down)

The drive was recognized on initial bootup but windows didnt want to load. I unplugged the drive reset the computer and plugged in the drive on the windows logo screen. Windows loaded but disc was not in device manager nor could windows detect it. I tried the SEAGATE software and it wasnt found either.

I tried a different software and it recognized the drive as "LOST". It is currently scanning the drives "bad sectors"... There is no data on the donor drive.

BUT the thing i find odd is that the junk heads off my original drive work on the donor drive... So im curious if its safe for me to assume that the donor heads should work on my ORIGINAL DRIVE? (so long as the firware/PCB/Bios swap works).

Sorry just trying to understand all this.

Why would you order a donor PCB when you have it behind your hand ( from the donor drive you made the HSA transplant)


Most likely

You can assume , but most likely not.

Practice and learn how to do it, invest a fortune in the right tools

Unfortunately its not a DIY

Don't believe everything you read

Well i was under the impression that the PCB revision needed to be the same? The original is a "REV B" while the Donor is a "REV C"

Drive clicks and spins down = heads problem

Be patient with me here as Im trying to learn and understand.

So the donor drive with the junk heads is currently being scanned by the software. Based on what you just said then since the donor drive clicks and spins down its a head problem then why is it scanning the drive with bad heads?

What I'm also trying to understand is how the donor drive accepts the junk heads from my original drive but my original drive isnt accepting the donor heads?

The PCB helps the drive to be detected in BIOS right? So if my original drive isnt being detected in BIOS wouldnt that point to PCB/Firmware issue

I am

Help me understand
The donor drive withe patients heads clicks and spins down right ?
And the software you using to scan the drive keeps scanning the drive ? (Even with a non spinning drive)

Yes. Drive clicks a few times and spins down. The software found donor drive... it says it's scanning "bad sectors".

Then what exactly is the software scanning (if the motor doesn't spin) ?

I couldn't tell you. This is all new to me. That's why I'm posting here trying to figure out how this all works. Maybe the software found the drive and it says it's scanning but maybe it's not actually scanning anything.

The software found the PCB (not the drive)

I really don't know what the software does, one thing for sure it doesn't scans the drive, (unless its an SSD) A non spinning drive can not be scanned (this is logic, no need to be a pro to understand it, right?).

Gotcha. I figured the system found the drive and not just the PCB... Now I know.

As far as the software... I can post the name of it so long as it's not against forum rules.

Yes a spinning drive would make sense but i don't know the intricate details of hard drives which is why I'm here for guidance and help.

So as stated before. Do I try to take the bios chip from original pcb and transplant to review c board. Do the board have to be the same revision? What should I try next with the patient drive since it still clicks?

As stated prior... this donor board scan was just an experiment to get affiliated.

I don't think that someone is (should be) interested to know what soft. it is
A software who claims to scan a non spinning drive or in other words it scans the PCB, is useless.

If the data on it is valuable to you then send it to a DR pro (not a computer repair shop, or a computer tech.)
If its not then you can keep playing with it, but IMHO nothing you can do as a DIY.

Okay. Thanks.

The PCB does its job of spinning your drive up. The problem is elsewhere. Either, head transplant was done wrong, or there is media damage, or the heads need a little more fine with advanced tools. None which can anyone experienced verify from afar.

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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

What would warrant a head transplant to have gone wrong? Also by media are you referring to data on the platters? Thanks.

It's a matter of perspective. Naturally and statistically, when people do something new and difficult, if obvious mistakes are not apparent, they tend to be overly optimistic about how well they performed the job. Not saying you did either a poor job of a great job, however most times people on their first attempts are likely to make mistakes, simply because they cannot foresee the pitfalls within the transplant process itself. I personally trained several people to do heads transplants and mistakes just happen. It is normal.

The media in this case means the disks (disk surface).

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I agree. I guess what I'do like to know is.... is there a way to run any tests on the drive currently? Is there a test for the heads to see if they are working based on some script? Any commands I can try to see if the drive gives any additional info? I've seen guys using anything from USB adapters to multimeters to check boards... etc... There's gotta be something else I could try other than give up and send it to a recovery specialist.