I have a WD2500JB-00KFA0 with a fried PCB. The smooth chip is melted really good as is a small chip (Q6 I think). So the last week or so I have been surfing trying to figure out my options. As I see it I think that there are 2 possibilites. (Please let me know if there are more)
1. I can try to replace the PCB. This seems like it would be something fun to try for sure but I am wondering what my actual chances of getting this to work are assuming I can find a matching drive (no luck on ebay so far). Is it like a 50-50 shot or what?
2. Send the drive in to a professional outfit. From the googling I have done it seems like 60% of the sites I have found to recover HD info are pretty sketchy. Is there a good way to weed out the good sites from the bad, they all seem to make the same claims and use the same equipment? Having never looked into this kind of service before I was a little disapointed to see the average cost sitting at just under $1000. Is that pretty standard? Thanks in advance.

To search for information about the company search on terms like..

"company name" +complaint
"company name" +scam
"company name" +robbery
"company name" +review

It may even be worth searching here for the company name.

_________________
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you probably don't fully understand the situation. ... Mr Kipling

https://www.mjm.co.uk/

I should add that 1000 seems a bit over the top for this type of problem, I would have thought less than 500 would be more realistic.

_________________
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you probably don't fully understand the situation. ... Mr Kipling

https://www.mjm.co.uk/

Gator_man,

Yes you can TRY replace the pcb board and see if you get lucky

So why not put it in a fridge for 24 hours, or a freezer? Why Not? (you can google that a lot as well)

Why Not TRY to open it and see what you can see inside it?

So go to your doctor when you got a broken ankle and he's going to be like you.....
He's going to take a piece of bone from another working ankle and TRY to connect it
to your leg. Who cares, just trying, just your leg, maybe it's not important.

Get my point?

Wow,

derp I'm not sure why you used such a hostile tone. I'm just trying to figure out success rates for the DIY approach to a PCB swap. If the data was even remotely valuable or important I would not consider the DIY approach. This isn't a broken leg its more like a splinter.

scratchy Thanks for the tips I have weeded out a few of the sites I had found, and I agree with you on the price, I have a few more quotes to get. I would feel much better about sending it in for less than 500 but the lowest quote I have gotten so far is 659 and that didn't include return shipping or the media to get the data back on.

In this case PCB swap may not be enough to return the drive to working condition. In many cases when the Smooth chip is severely damaged (and other chips related) there is a high probability that the "Preamp" inside the drive located on the headstack is also dead. So in this case replacing the PCB would only kill the new PCb as there is a short at the preamp. The only course of action in this case is to replace the headstack and this requires a lot of finesse and experience; as well as proper facilities (clean chamber) and equipment.


In this case I would say that you can attempt to replace the PCB with a new one (do not move the EEPROM(ROM) from the original PCB at this time)

if the new pcb powers on the drive, and does not short; then chances are you have a stroke of luck and the drive should be recoverable.

Next you would need to either read the ROM data off of the eeprom with a tool, or you can move the whole EEPROM chip to the new PCB using a hot air station/ Soldering iron.

What were the guess diagnoses for the quotes you were given? Did they explain the work they think needs to be performed, or did they pull the numbers out of the air? Each quote will depend on what the person on the other end of the phone thinks is wrong and needs fixing.

There really is no point in getting a quote for, say, $300 and then be told that the actual work is >$1000 if you want the data!

Hi Gator_man,

Don't read me wrong. I am not hostile to your situation.
This situation is virgin territory for you. Not the time to TRY anything bud.
This is the time to take advice from an expert - MAKE NO GUESSES !!

Every day I hear of people crying cause they lost their data, because some
techie TRIED something.

Your case could be easy to solve, but now is NOT the time FOR YOU to make a CALL
TRY nothing and do only as advised by an expert - be patient, an expert can help.

Step 1. Swapping the pcb has virtually ZERO chance of working.

I second that!

@jauh Most of these outfits I think are not paying any attention to what I say and are just pulling quotes out of the air. A couple of them charge a fixed fee no matter whats wrong based on drive size. They all seem focused on getting the drive so they can diagnose it for free. I'm just not that trusting esp when dealing with stuff that is new for me. I don't want to cheat anyone out of any money I want to be informed before I jump into somthing.

@derp Thank you for your honest opinion that is exactly what I am looking for.

@jauh Thanks for your opinion too.

You can't expect a mechanic to give you a quote when you call him and say your car won't start. Even if you tell him the symptoms, he is only guessing at what the problem is and what it will cost. He will need to see the car before he gives you a quote. I doubt you would trust a mechanic that gives you a quote without seeing the car. It is not too much different with hard drives. My humble advise would be to send it to a pro but here is what you should look for when deciding who. Unfortunately in this business, it will be almost impossible to research if a company is good or bad. Use logic. If you have to pay them without getting data, RUN. If you have to pay for an evaluation just to get a quote for your recovery, RUN. If they give you a quote that does not include parts for the recovery, RUN. If you have to give them your credit card before they recovery data, RUN. If they give you a quote/flat rate without diagnosing the drive, RUN. Bottom Line.... They have to have the drive to diagnose it to give an accurate quote. You should not pay to get a quote. The quote should be all inclusive, parts, labor, etc. No additional expense except return data media possibly. You should also have the absolute final say at the end whether you accept the recovery results or not. If you don't accept them, you don't pay. You should stay away from any company that will not meet these standards. NO DATA - NO CHARGE. Sorry fellow members, just my humble opinion.

As far as companies that will give you a flat rate quote... All I can say is that if your recovery can be done in their flat rate range, you may get your data back. I can guarantee you though, you are not going to get a $1400.00 recovery for the $600.00 flat rate. You will likely just be told it is unrecoverable instead.

Gator_man,

Where are you located?

I know you are trying to get the best price possible; I would try to do the same thing in your situation. But unfortunately data recovery is not like shopping for sales at the mall. The cheapest price is often not going to get you the best results. I don't want to say that the higher the price, the better the service. But you will have to face the fact that any real pro is going to charge you a substantial fee for data recovery. Mainly for the following reasons:

1.Data Recovery is not easy and not everyone is qualified and capable of learning the expertise
2.Data Recovery tools are expensive
3.There is little general knowledge therefore information is scares.

Also there are some big differences in quality of service. For example, not all data recovery labs check your data for corruption, If you are not careful you may receive your data back, but with 30% - 40% file corruption, or other issues. To be honest I don't know of anyone in the USA who is qualified and would perform the recovery for under $500. If price is really a big issue then you may want to consider shipping it over seas to one of the qualified people on this forum.

Most times a burnt VCM is accompanied with some bad sectors at least. If I was evaluating and quoting this job, IF!! The only problem was a bad PCB, good heads and less than 1K bad sectors, I would quote the job at $595.00.

Gator_man,

I am not trying to scare you, but
you wrote

I know many members here will agree with me when I say that this case
could turn out to be a serious heart transplant, no kidding.

Please tread cautiously and make no assumptions whatsoever.
Any conclusion or assumption must be made on diagnostic facts.

My favorite - get the facts, don't make or create them.

Let's cut a long story short : how much do the OP want to spend MAXIMUM ?

That is the crux of the situation. This drive had 4 partitions on it and was in my wifes computer. In the last 6 months I have only really messed with 2 of those partitions and the info on them is not that important (I have most of it backed up in other locations). The other 2 partitions I really have no clue about but my wife seems to think that she has some important (sentimental) information on one of them which I know hasn't been backed up as my file server went belly up about 4 months ago and I haven't had time to fix it yet. So thats what I'm have to figure out how much is this data worth to me. I will be sending the drive in to a professional to keep my wife happy I just have to figure out which one. Thanks for all the help and responses they have helped a ton!

Man u have two options
In your best interest I think you should sit the family down and tell them the 2 options to solving the problem since we r in a recession.
the first option was given to you by Russwinters
the second option is u not taking the blame and going to the pros

Good luck on the road that u might take.

Man u have two options
In your best interest I think you should sit the family down and tell them the 2 options to solving the problem since we r in a recession.
the first option was given to you by Russwinters
the second option is u not taking the blame and going to the pros

Good luck on the road that u might take.

Or do the right thing : put drive in a safe place and save $ waiting for better times. The data is in the drive.

Remember: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished".

Similar problem with my daughter's hard drive. Being the know-all dad, I told my wife I'll try to replace the fried board. Bought another identical drive on eBay and swapped boards. No luck. Now my wife insisted I return the drive from eBay and claim it was defective. I refused (I do have ethics), because the drive worked perfect until I swapped the board. Now both boards are bad.

My wife put me in the doghouse for a week, claiming I wasted the money on the new drive. I told her there was no other choice, but she's technically challenged and didn't understand the alternatives were too expensive.

Fortunately nothing too important was on this hd, so no great loss for my daughter.