so basically i saw a spark come out of the power connector on my hard drive. i was pretty freaked out when that happened and i thought it was fried for good. i ended up trying again just to see if it still worked.
the thing is the bios still detects my drive,which is good, but after 5 minutes of having it on there was a burning smell and and then i THINK i saw an orange glow on the board. i turned it off right away and checked the board but i didn't see any burn spots or anything.

anyway, i really need to know what was causing the overheating problem (maybe a bad connector on the board since it sparked) and would replacing the pcb fix all this.

i was gonna send my board into besthddparts.com so they can switch the firmware and make sure i get the exact board. and it only costs $60 as opposed to $1000 for data recovery services.

i really need help please, i don't want to lose all my data.

It would REALLY help if you told us which manufacturer + model drive this is??

_________________
Data Recovery Ireland

sorry about that

its a maxtor diamondmax plus 9 160gb ide


here are the boards i was gonna get, i wasn't really sure which one to get but i think the first one looks the most like my board.

http://www.hdd-parts.com/18010003.html
http://www.hdd-parts.com/18000008.html

EDIT:
after i looked again at the first two, they say they're just diamond plus 9
this one is a diamondmax plus 9
this one looks really close to mine too but it says it a model for 6Y160L0 and 6Y160P0
does that mean this board is compatible with two different models?

http://www.hdd-parts.com/18000270.html

Search TVS here on forum and you will find your answer. You need to match the board and you can find those answers on Internet and how to find a good donor pcb board if that is what you want to change out. If you need your data back and then change HDD search for TVS.

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Iorana Haraharaini

alright, i've been searching alot about the TVS thing

but i still have a few questions

1. i'm still not exactly sure what it looks like or where it's located. i took a couple of pictures of my drive.
the chip on the way right looks like it is the thing that got burned, there was some white crud on there that flaked off and then there was that indented circle. so if i'm not mistaken that's were that orange glow came from that i thought i saw. and hopefully that's what i have to remove.





hopefully thats the TVS, if it's something else please tell me what it is.

anyway,
2. removing it? i was reading that you have to desolder it. i don't know how to do any of that stuff, is there any safe way that someone like me could use to remove it using other items? could i damage my board and everything if i remove it improperly? i've never had to take anything off a circuit board before.

3. this is really important for me to know. what can go wrong if i remove it? i'm very nervous about removing it and plugging it into my computer again. what if it still overheats, is my harddrive then screwed or could i hopefully just switch out the pcb?
what are the odds to something like this going wrong?

i appreciate anyones help .

Those models don't usualy suffer from TVS failure.
Get a new board and replace yours.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

You have seen the orange glow , you're right. It came from the Q500 on the opposite corner of the power connector, it is clearly melted down. This PCB has no TVS.
Your Q500 is gone, cross fingers because it is .... blah blah blah.... (too long to explain) , a failure here CAN lead to preamp distruction but maybe everything stopped before catastrophical damage. Good luck.

man, now this really has me worried
i read in another post that someone fried the Q500 and the SMOOTH chip and he got his working with a pcb swap, so i'm crossing my fingers right now.


to harddrivespecialist i'll be sending you a pm soon about that board you said you can get me.

If pcb swap doesn't work preamp is fried and need a pro. Why worry? I see these problems every day...

i'm worried because i have important data on there that i really need but i don't have $400-$1000 to spend.

and if the preamp if dead then it'll probably cost me a barrel o' cash to get my data back.

Hi, do you see the white sticker on the Pcb stated F8FYA?...that is what you need to match to get a Pcb that will work for you.
And as BlackST stated, cross your fingers that the preamp is not damaged...if so you'll need to seek out a pro.

Good luck

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

If preamp is KO data is likely to be safe and sound INSIDE the drive, so save money until you can do it. Don't worry.