As stated, I am trying to revive a Toshiba HD 2188 hard drive. It is a MK8025GAS B ZE01 T. ( This is my friend's hard drive, he can't afford a data recovery place, so I am doing my best here) Here is the story. The laptop got some water on it, and then all it would do is a continuous booting cycle. I Have his identical laptop, so i tried his hard drive in mine, and it pretty much did the same thing. I tried to run checkdisk, and it said " it has one or more unrecoverable errors" The hard drive would not spin on startup. I located a PCB, with the same model and firmware number that I stated, the only difference being the the controller chip. My controller chip is 88i5510-BCJ1, the controller chip in the new board is 88i5510-BCJ. I installed the new board, and pu it in the laptop. The laptop would not recognize a hard drive being installed ( it did with the old board) but the hard drive spun up and ran without a problem ( which it did not do with the old board) This is where I am now. I am trying to locate a board with the same controller chip now. Given what I have done so far, could I possibly recover the info on the disk?

A simple PCB swap on a Toshiba drive will NEVER work for you. These PCB's contain adaptive (drive specific) data embedded within the CPU. Swapping the CPU requires expensive equipment and skill as the chip type is BGA.

You could find a local electronics specialist with the right gear for BGA rework and have them swap the CPU to the new board.

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Data Recovery Ireland

Which chip is the cpu? I have read this on another forum, but I don't know which chip needs to be changed. I know a local electronics guy that is great with small solder work, but doesn't work on hard drives. I'm not bad with a solder gun myself, but this is something I won't try. I'm encouraged because changing the board got the drive to spin, ( no odd noises, ran quiet, sounded like it should) the computer would not recognize there was a hard drive present, though. I haven't tried to slave it yet, I may try that next.....

You don't need to change the CPU on this model - just swap IC12, an 8 pin DIP.

Jono

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

IC12 looks pretty easy to change. Are you sure? What does IC12 do exactly? Have you had success revival this particular drive or with toshibas in general? I just want to eliminate the less invasive stuff first before I try swapping chips. Thanks for taking the time to reply guys. I do appreciate the help.

Without seeing the PCB, I suspect that IC12 is a serial EEPROM which stores part of the drive's firmware and the "adaptives" that were mentioned elsewhere.

Just search for the part number, eg 29LV512.

The following search example will help you find a datasheet:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=enrls=e ... tnG=Search

No, I'm not sure, I thought I'd waste time for both of us . . . .

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The reason I asked " are you sure" is because the previous poster told me to swap out a different chip. I was just wondering if you had revived a toshiba drive, or this model, because if you had, I would like to know what worked. When I changed the board, the drive started spinning, and ran like there was no issue, but the laptop would not recognize a hard drive. That's encouraging to me. It leads me to believe the problem is actually fixable. Swapping chips is something I need someone else to do, so i want to make sure I have the right chip before I proceed further.

Jono is right about this one, I haven't looked at one of those PCB's for a while. If you want to be 100%, post a pic of the PCB

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Data Recovery Ireland

Here is a picture of the board....

Ok, if all I need to do now is change out IC12, do I still need to get another PCB with the same controller chip? The original board is 88i5510-BCJ1. The one on the new board is 88i5510-BCJ. Both boards are MK8025GAS B ZE01 T, same firmware. If the eeprom is switched over, does the controller chip matter?

Noting ventured, nothing gained . . .

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

I've read a few other post here and on another forum where swapping the IC12 chip to the new board has been successful, so I will try this. I just need to know if that controler chip needs to be the same # as well. If so, I need another board. if not, the donor board I have now should work. That is where I am sitting as of right now.

just do it....and if it doesn't work, then go searching for an exact match pcb. You have nothing to lose at this point.

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Data Recovery Ireland

I tried to day to slave it with a USB adapter. The drive spun, with no clicking or unusual noises, the drive was recognized as an Mk8025GAS Toshiba drive. When I tried to open it, I got this error message:
E\ is not accessible. The wrong diskette is in the drive. Insert (Volume Serial Number: ) into drive E/
( This is with the original unaltered PCB) Does this error message indicate anything wrong in particular? Could I possibly retrieve the info off this disk with data recovery software instead of messing with the PCB, or is this still a PCB problem?

This is not a PCB problem.
You will need advanced imager to get data from your drive, but I would suggest to refer to a pro for possibly inexpensive recovery.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Definitely NOT a PCB problem.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

The partition came up as a RAW fole, 0 bytes. So this may be recoverable with a program? (Obviously not a program I have access to, or can afford, most likely.) I may end up having to send this one out then. I hate not being able to find and fix a problem myself. Going to someone else to fix it is the same as failing. I guess I'll search locally and see if I can find someone to help me for a reasonable price.

Check the drive with MHDD.

Check the capacity shown (should be around 156,000,000 sectors) and make sure the serial number is correct.

Report findings here.

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PC Image Data Recovery
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New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

MHDD could not find the hard drive. I ran HDDscan, surface test, and here is what was found.

Begin LBA 0

End LBA 156301488

Block size 256

Model #, serial, and firmware are all correct. How do I proceed from here? I downloaded hddscan ( only used the surface test, looks like a nice program) and I also downloaded handyrecovery. ( don't really know if I can use it, haven't opened it yet)