Hi All,

I have a Samsung 3.5" Hard Disk with a burnt chip on a the PCB. Suffered a power surge.

Does anybody know what needs to match on the donor PCB? The minimum requirement.

The disk is a Samsung SP2014N and on the drive it has the following information:

1. S/N
2. P/N
3. P/V
4. A number on the PCB's plastic IDE connector on the back, this is a white sticker with a long number.

Any help would be great!

Thanks a lot.

Hi,

Same FW version. But this is noted nowhere on the drive

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

yep, otherwise u have to xfer the ROM, tricky!

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So what's the best way to pick the donor drive from Ebay? What should i ask for?

Can you see if a chip on the PCB has a number and match that?

If not - is the ROM chip transplant like with WD drives? Same sort of chip? I have done this before and it's worked.

Hi,

Samsungs have either AT49F1024 or M29F102BB ROM, these are in TSOP40 package.
there's no problem swapping it provided U have the right tools.

regards,
pepe

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Hi,

for Samsung:

The P/V applies to the platter and head manufacturers inside the drive, nothing to do with the PCB. So to be sure you can match both the thing I prefer complete P/V code.
P/V MS -> patient, then
P/V MS -> doner


PCB matching:

4th Character from the rear side big stricker.
7th Character from the Model no. (denotes buffer size)

-RDS.

Thanks ragadatasolutions and pepe for your help.

For example, the drive i have here has printed on the label:
Model: SP2004C
P/N: 1415J15J1FYC40324
P/V: FS
White Sticker on PCB: PANDTC67B63266

So ragadatasolutions, according to the information you have provided - to buy a donor drive to use the PCB from Ebay i should look for:
Model: SP2004C (paying attention to the C letter especially).
AND
Match only the 4th letter on the PCB sticker (i.e in this case "D") and ignore all other letters? i.e matchin is not important.

AND Ignore P/V for a PCB Swap. From what you have said, it's not important.

Is this correct?

P/V is the material employed to build the drive. For the firmware is a little bit complicated. You have to figure out what is the FW on the disk , the number of heads (maybe heads disabled ?) and then find a donor - if you don't have the knowledge or the solutions to bypass thiss issue. Anyway if the FW on the rom doesn't match it's not necessary to swap the chip (I have a proprietary solution for in-circuit programming) so I usually get a similar PCB and then reprogram consequently. Ever worked.

I am more interested in knowing what to look for when buying a donor - if i had 5 identical disks as spare parts i'm sure i could use trial and error to eventually figure it out - but i don't want to waste money or time buying the wrong parts which i cannot use - so trying to get a little more help in this area.

You need to buy a drive from the same family (Palo) as yours. They all use one and the same PCB. Just swap the ROM chip. Even drives from Veloce family are using the same PCB. Good luck.

Agree with BGman

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So when buying a drive on ebay, if i buy any hard that is the same model # (e.g SP2004C) is this safe to assume it's the same family?

Also - some of the drives on ebay have printed on the drive label a firmware version but my drive does not have this printed.

Fw version can be seen when the drive is working if u match the model no then the family is same u will get same PCB , just have to change rom if it doesnot match .

Thanks rameez, so would you suggest just buying any hard disk on ebay with the exact same model # and not using any other criteria?

Then swapping the rom from the faulty board to the new board.

yes , would be enough .

Thanks rameez - do you think i should also consider the date of manufacture? e.g buy one less than 2 months apart?

no if u can swap ROM model no would be enough .