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 Post subject: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: September 29th, 2008, 15:27 
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Joined: April 10th, 2007, 9:53
Posts: 335
Is it possible for the NVRAM chip to be damaged on these drives when a PCB blows? I've successfully swapped these chips when replacing damaged PCB's before, but for some reason I have run into a string of them where the drive will not power up after the NVRAM swap. I don't know if I have lost my touch with these or what, but I have never had so many problems swapping such simple chips. I have the right equipment, and have even swapped the fine pitch Marvel chips on some WD drives, but for some reason I have either run into a string of drives where the chip itself is bad, or I'm screwing up.


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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: September 29th, 2008, 15:41 
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Joined: November 29th, 2006, 10:08
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Location: UK
I've had one or two, but not many.

Have managed to fix so far. :-)

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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: September 29th, 2008, 21:39 
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Joined: January 15th, 2008, 11:06
Posts: 1419
Location: Providence, RI. Boston, MA USA
Bad NVRAM chip can cause it.

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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: September 30th, 2008, 9:38 
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Joined: April 10th, 2007, 9:53
Posts: 335
Is there any way to test these chips?


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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: September 30th, 2008, 14:29 
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Joined: June 27th, 2006, 11:33
Posts: 2288
Location: In ur HDD !
Check data with eeprom .


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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: October 1st, 2008, 13:56 
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Joined: April 10th, 2007, 9:53
Posts: 335
I don't have an eeprom, but I'm going to figure something out. Do you know where to get one or where I can find information about building one?

As an additional note, I sat down and just practiced for about 4 hours to make sure, as best I can, that it's not something I'm doing. I took a perfectly good working board, I removed and replaced the NVRAM about 15 times. I did this until the board was nearly burned through around the edges. Everytime, aside from once when I was purposfully careless, the board was able to power up the drive.

However, when I placed the chip from one of the dead drives onto that board I was working with, it would not power up. I removed that chip, replaced it with the original, and it worked fine. So I can only assume at this point that something is wrong with the actual NVRAM chips on these drives I've been getting.


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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: October 1st, 2008, 14:58 
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Joined: January 15th, 2008, 11:06
Posts: 1419
Location: Providence, RI. Boston, MA USA
Your assumption is correct.

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 Post subject: Re: Hitachi Travelstar NVRAM swap
PostPosted: October 2nd, 2008, 21:36 
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Joined: January 29th, 2005, 22:58
Posts: 637
Location: Canada
Hint: NVRAM version needs to be compatible with ROM version. :)


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