I have a st9250827as 2.5in sata drive that needs data recovery but it does not spin up and just makes tr tr tr tr tr noise pauses for about .5 sec then does it again. I think its the motor making the noise but i guess it could be the head too. I was thinking about getting a new board but don't want to put the money into it if its not going to work. Do you know if there is a way to test to see if its the motor or the board? Thanks

hello,
i think may be this is head problem.

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Thanks for the info and fast reply. Any way to test this for sure without getting a new board or opening the drive? Thanks

do you have pro tools?

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What do you mean by pro tools? I have a multimeter, screwdriver sets including star heads, not a clean room but i've read a few things to make a clean box. I was thinking of trying to spin the motor by inputting power into the 3 pin connector but i don't know the voltage or the polarity of the pins. Does any one here know that? Thanks

It seems like your data is not more valuable then a board.
In this case you better off buying a new drive.

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The drive is not mine and I'm trying to do a data recovery for a friend. I know the data is import to this person but not $500 to $1500 to send in to a data recovery center. I want to figure out the most efficient to get the data off without doing anything irreversible. I'm definitely not going to open the drive until I try a new board and I would like to find a way to test the board or motor before finding a board. I have tried testing the resistance of the motor and it reads 4.5 ohms no mater which combo of the 3 pin I test. I'm thinking the motor is fine because it was about the same ohms as a similar drive. I was thinking if I knew the voltage and polarity of the pins so I can put power into it to see if it will spin up. I don't see how this could go wrong as long as i have the right info but let me know if I'm wrong. Thanks.

It could be a bad PCB, but likely not. As for powering the motor, I'll be the one to give you the bad news. It's not just a matter of applying the right voltage and polarity to the motor. It's a brushless motor, and needs proper signals to all 3 wires. The easiest way to test the motor is to use another board. When another board doesn't solve it, you're stuck with an internal problem, likely either stiction or a bad spindle bearing. I don't envy you, trying to do a $1000 job for a smile and some luck. If the PCB doesn't do the trick, I can accurately predict you will likely fail. Whatever you do runs the risk of making professional data recovery hard, more expensive, and possibly completely impossible. Just a wild guess, but I suspect your friend is cute. If so, what will she think of you when you completely screw her drive?

Ah, that makes sense I took apart a brushless fan once and it did have a small PCB board in it. How exact does the drive I'm getting the board from have to be? I heard that most of the time even if you get the same model number it doesn't work. Also how much success have you seen or heard in doing a board replacement? Thanks for everyone's help so far.

You don't know anything about dr, neither about drive electronics, don't want - you or your friend - risk even the few $ or € for a replacement board... What a good start. Bad, bad attitude! What was the budget for this 'operation' in any case? Maybe someone will accept and help.

Terminal output would help.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

If PCB is at fault, new PCB is needed, chances of getting a compatible PCB? Possibly. Then could you replace the ROM chip if that was required?
If Motor is at fault, physical work is needed, at this I am sure you will fail.
If Heads have stiction, or are damaged, physical work is needed, and again I think you will fail.

It is unlikely to be any other fault, but I would definately consider gettin a pro to look at it for you.

Maybe someone here can offer you a special 'HDD GURU discount'

Even powering on the drive at this point decreases your chances of recovery; if there is stiction, or head damage every time you power on the drive you are likely damaging the disk surface. Not only will this likely render the drive un-recoverable; all the costs of professional services will skyrocket.


This is not a pcb problem; put the drive aside somewhere safe, and save your pennies. Practice on a wortheless drive, not on a friends with data; this is being irresponsible with someones data.

I'm going to try to order a new hard drive and change out the PCB. Do you know anyone places that will take requests on looking at the firmware version before sending? Thanks

Try google or ebay.

OK so I took apart a different bad drive that had fail DFT with 0x70 or 0x72 error code can't remember which but anyway I wanted to see how a crashed head would sound. To find this out I moved the heads over the platter when the drive was powered off and then turned it on. The noise it made was kinda like the noise the other HDD was making and the motor or the head did not move at all. I then powered off the drive and moved the head back off the platters and even made some noise and was a bit sickly so I know the heads were touching the platters. I then powered back on the hard drive and some how I was able to read data off it still!?!?! I was very surprised by this so I took apart the hard drive with the data on it and the heads where stuck on the very outer edge of the platters. I powered on the drive to see if the motor or the head was moving and it was not. So I vary carefully moved the heads off the platter and power the drive up. The motor started to spin up and the head moved over the platter to the very center part of the disks then to the end and repeats and the computer will not read it. There is also a high pitch noise that changes as the head moves around. I powered it off and looked at the heads closely and noticed that the 2nd head from the top head has a bend closer to the platters then the others. I don't think one head should be different out of 4 but what do you think? If the head is not normal has anyone had success bending it back?

I 'm sorry to tell you. You are likely kill the drive , make thing worse. even data seem impossible to recover....

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Diy=kill drive. Yes, with proper tool and procedure it is possible to recover data - not all. But only if someone did not experimenting like you.

Sometimes I wonder if new members come on here just because their attention starved.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Or maybe long and boring lunch breaks at work