Hi All,

Noobie here to hardware data recovery.

I pulled a bone head move with two drives. I left them on a coffee table just below a skylight and went away for the 4 hottest weeks of the summer.
Came back to find them both dead. So I assume it was direct sunlight was the culprit. Does this make sense? And if so - can a simple PCB swap fix this?

Thanks in advance.
HH

Details:

Drive 1: WD2500
WD Cavier SE - EIDE
MDL: WD2500JB - 75GVCO (O or 0 not sure)
DATE: 14 Jul 2005
DCM: DSCHCTJAH
PCB sticker: 2061-701265-200 AH
PCB board: 2060-701265-001 REV A

Drive 2: WD2000
WD Cavier SE EIDE
MDL: WD2000JB-00GVC0 (again not sure if o or 0)
DATE: 29 Jul 2005
DCM: HSCHNTJAH
PCB sticker: 2061-701265-200 AH
PCB board: 2060-701265-001 REV A

do you want to exchange PCB between these drive? this PCB model is same

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Wow. I suppose the sun could have been strong enough to heat the black drives to the point they got hot enough to reflow solder. Hard to imagine it would have been possible w/o leaving demage to the coffee table or carpeting or something, though.

The other possibility is that the computer you tested them with is bad and both drives are good.

I looked at some websites that were testing temperatures of various car paints in direct sunlight. The black colored car out in the hot summer sun got to 160F on the hood. There must be more to the problem you're having. If it got hot enough to reflow solder your table would have caught on fire way before the hard drives. Keep in mind that the sticker on the drive is white and would have reflected half of the heat. I think someone is messing with you or the way you tested the drives is at fault.

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I've tested these drives in 4 machines plus an external USB case.
No go.

All i recall is that they worked fine before I left them there and they now no longer work.
The drives wont even spin up.
I do know this - that when installed along with a bootable drive (any OS) these prevent the good drive from booting.
It fails at a "boot from CD - press any key" message.

Ok so say it wasn't sunlight. Any suggestions to determine what the problem is.
IS there a test to determine if a PCB replacement would work?

Thanks again.

Based on that, it does sound like a bad PCB. I suspect static damage over heat tho.. Unless if the table the drives were sitting on was scortched, the temperature likely was irrelevant. While the PCB is bad, there is no guarantee that's the only problem. In simple terms, something big enough to zap the PCB is likely big enough to zap the preamp, and that means a head swap.

Another possibility... Does your skylight leak? Heat will get rid of obvious signs of moisture, but water under the chips can corrode the vias and traces.

Thanks rchdwick, Skylight does not leak.

Is there a test to determine if a OCB swap would work or not?
Is there a way to apply power to the drive to see if it will spin up without using the board?

thanks in advance

As I have checked two drives last friday, both of which with stuck spindles, I would think of mechanical deformation (bearings) first. 160 F are only 71 C, that should not do that much harm for a short period, but has anyone ever tested a drive at 71 C for extended time?

Swapping the PCB is the test. No way to spin motor without PCB (Well, there is, but that's another story ) A Shorted preamp may damage the PCB. Testing that depends on if you're handy with a multimeter, and willing to risk damaging the preamp.

Nice logic and use of alternate information sites for presentation of the reasoning.