Have here one HDD ST3300620A (Seagate Barracuda 7200.10) PATA 300GB.

Attached and applied power.

Spins up and does irregular "whip-clunk".

HDD not detected.

Perusal of HDD shows damage on PCD, probably physical.

See image attached.

What part is this ? Is this a passive element (coil) ?
Can it be fixed by replacing or soldering.

Drive is only to spin for imaging and will be scrapped afterwards.

Thanks in advance, /pipedevnull

The PCB is fine , only some top part of the ferrite coil is cracked. Your problem is most likely heads or physical damage INSIDE. Call a pro.

Part number of Ferrite Coil is unknown, no ST3300620A to salvage at the moment.

Is this an actual ferrite or just an air coil in enclosure ?

If it is a ferrite coil, the main section of the housing is still available.

So soldering should probably fix this, the housing itself appears to be commonly employed plastic/ceramic with no significant electrical properties.

CF: "internal damage" ... The drive was _NOT_ dropped, jarred, jostled etc.
The damage very probably results from a second drive's screw scraping over the element.
NO internal damage to be expected.

Any suggestions to potential problems related to specifically this PCB-component ?

/pipedevnull

You are wasting time. If the coil was damaged or not working, the drive won't spin at all. Internal damage can happen anytime anyway.
Can't tell you more.

Wasting time ? - Maybe yes, maybe no.
Internal damage ? - I will see.

Again: coil appears intact, the solder connection is ruptured.

What's the part number ?

What coil ferrite or air-coil ?

Thanks

/pipedevnull

These coils cannot be bought easily; you should take one from another Seagate.
Its a ferrite coil, not air-coil.

Dobre

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Ah ! Thanks.

Do you possibly know the number of the coil ? -
The "writ" on the top of it should suffice.

I happen to have quite a few dead Seagate's around,
just not specifically this ST3300620A 300 GB Model.

Thanks in advance.

/pipedevnull

???

BlackST,

Let Pipedevnull do DIY and break the drive finnaly.
When he open the HDD he will call you

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This user was found to be affiliated with Ace Lab/PC-3000. See this topic for details.

Sit and wait... "yes we can"

Haha. - Open Drive.

Yes, indeed. If it need be, I'll open the drive in the Clean-Box I happen to have here.
Probably just by accident it appeared at some time in the past.
I somehow cannot remember - maybe I was abducted by aliens, you know

I happen to have repaired quite a few things in my life ... not only harddisks,
but that is of no interest.

Coming back to the drive.

Coil reconnected, drive spins beautifully and is accessible via a Tableau eSata Bridge.

Addressing sectors etc. is no problem.

Data delivered is reproducible.

Next Question:

What actual function does this coil (cf. image at beginning of post) have circuit-wise ?
Does anyone have reliable information about the characteristics of this coil in operation ?

Any pointers to addtl. documentation, circuit-diagrams or the like are greatly appreciated.
Google or like ilk deliver too much garbage to get anything out of it.

Special thanks @dobrevjetser (too bad, you don't have a rating system here AFAIK)
for relevant information.

/pipedevnull


=====
P.S.:
I have frequently and repeatedly visited this board for years now.
Remarkably, though, the general attitude of some participants definitely changed over the last 1 1/2 years.
Seemingly the board appears to have experienced a notable increase of people exhibiting severe smugness, rather than a more community-like attitude, to which I personally am much more comfortable with.

Having valid, reliable and hard experience in HW, SW, IT, signal-processing, repairs, etc. for over 30 years now, this actually begins giving me a slightly negative impression.
Of the posted answers to this thread (six), only two actually were indicative, the others rather non-constructive.
This singular thread delivers an effectivity of 2/6 = 1/3 = 30% potentially helpful answers, but 60% were actually non-constructive.

1 was basically correct, but off the point
1 was a null answer (considered a bump)
2 were off-topic

Hm.

There is no published docs on drives PCBs
I guess this coil is part of the power supply for preamp

PS: You got really lucky

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

You're correct about the insufferable arrogance of some of the posters here. I used to visit this site much more often than I do now but have lost patience with the silliness. I am a big believer in Ockham's Razor: the correct solution is often the simplest one, viz. when you see an obviously burnt component on a PCB it would seem rather obvious to attempt replacement of that part before sending it off to a "pro". Good general rule of thumb: quality of advice offered is inversely proportional to total number of posts. There are a few exceptions here but it seems to hold true fairly often. Congrats on solving the problem.