I have an IBM ThinkCenter desktop with a 40GB 7200RPM Hitachi 07n9673 IDE hard drive. It was manufactured in July, 2003.

The hard drive apparantly failed - it would not boot, and could not be read as a secondary drive in other machines. I sent the hard drive sent to two data recovery companies. Both said very quickly that they could recover data, the first for a very high price, and the second for 30% less, but still high.

I figured that the large change in price and the quickness of the response meant the repair and recovery was easy, so I want to try fixing it myself. The first things websites say to try is replacing the board, so I ordered a another hard drive - same brand, same model, same size, same year.

I tested the new hard drive, and it worked fine, so I swapped the boards and inserted them both into a PC as secondary drives to a primary Windows XP installation.

Neither hard drive could be read.

I swapped the boards and put them back... and again, neither could be read. The good new hard drive is bad now? I don't understand.

Any ideas on why this would happen? Or how to extract data off the original hard drive?

The reason for the quick reponse is because professionals have expensive tools and experience, and can diagnose faults very quickly. It certainly does not mean your hard drive will be an easy fix.

This is what happened to your drive: results-the-yourself-solutions-t11912.html?hilit=diy

Please read it carefully.

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
Find Cheap Donor Drives App: https://www.zeroalpha.com.au/donor-drive-app Updated February 2026

Just matching drives does not mean the pcb boards are compatable. You need to look at board and match it. Now you have two drives that are fried. Want to try for three. Continue on and you can burn up more inside your drive and the price will go even higher. Or second you can use search here and try to read more and figure out what people are talking about in changing out pcb boards and what they request. Do a little research and see what there is on this site before attempting a DIY repair which will cost you more in the long run than a pro to take care of it for you and give you back you data.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Everything is easy when you can do it... Now you realized that you were wrong and you have 2 bad drives in the middle of nowhere. And the price for DR will be definitely higher. Did you say it to the websites/people that gave you such advice? Lessons are sometimes hard.

Does your failed drive power up at all?
What is your new drive doing?

The data recovery is not as easy as you see on YouTube. You have to have very expensive tools + years of experience + skills to complete the recovery. Otherwise, you'll get 2 or 3 dead drives with no data and perm-loss-of-data.

Your data should be still recoverable. You might want to call that 30% off company a call and see if they can still give you the price they quoted you. Chances are you just increased the price x 1.5 or more....

By the way, how much was the quote from these 2 places??? USD or EURO???

A honest quote for DR in such scenario should be in the 1000/1300 Eur/$ + VAT.

I appreciate all of your input. This has been a learning experience for me.

The original drive powers up. If I do not connect the drive with the IDE cable, then it powers up smoothly as though nothing is wrong, no unusual sounds or anything. If I connect IDE to the motherboard and then power up, it spins up, and every five seconds makes a single click.

The new drive now does the same thing.

The original quote was over $2000 US dollars.

Reading these price quotes, I guess I don't charge enough . . .

Anyway, there is a "curious" feature about these IBM / Hitachi drives. If a drive detects that the PCB isn't compatible, it sets a bit on the firmware of the PCB that renders it useless. Hence you can take a good PCB, swap it, and it becomes "bad."

However, if I remember correctly, a triggered bit keeps the drive from spinning up altogether. That's not the symptom that you have, so maybe the PCB was damaged by a bad preamp circuit, static, or something else. That's even worse.

A triggered bit can be reset, but AFAIK, not without proper, expensive gear. And proper diagnosis / repair of this situation is beyond what an end user can do . . . in spite of the You Tube videos that are "out there."

Based upon what we see here on a regular basis, I think these D.I.Y. sites ought to post a BIG DISCLAIMER at the very beginning, and then maybe again later on. If not, they are doing the casual viewer a great disservice . . .

Jono

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D I Y = Destroy It Yourself.