Help: Seagate Momentus 5400.6 ST9320325AS

[cyberkid]

Hi,

It's from a Freeagent Go portable. I left PC on for overnight downloads with portable hdd. at morning the system was on standby mode and the HDD LED was off. there was a burning smell through the USB port on the casing. removed the casing and connected it to an external USB->SATA connector, the drive was spinning, but not at the full speed. It wasn't getting detected in BIOS too. again connected it to the original casing, the LED's were blinking on and off.

now it's not at all spinning up.

there are no visible damages on PCB. is it a PCB damage. how can I confirm it?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Specs:

Seagate Momentus 5400.6 320GB

ST9320325AS

FW: 0001BSM1

PCB : 100536286 RevB

Thanking you in advance.

Vipin.

[jaclaz]

Hi,

It's from a Freeagent Go portable. I left PC on for overnight downloads with portable hdd. at morning the system was on standby mode and the HDD LED was off. there was a burning smell through the USB port on the casing. removed the casing and connected it to an external USB->SATA connector, the drive was spinning, but not at the full speed. It wasn't getting detected in BIOS too. again connected it to the original casing, the LED's were blinking on and off.

now it's not at all spinning up.

there are no visible damages on PCB. is it a PCB damage. how can I confirm it?

A "normal" PCB swap won't work with that drive, if you exchange the ROM properly (NOT easy on a 2.5" disk) it may.

But you have no way to know in advance, from what you describe it coud well be a sticky bearing that caused the motor to overheat, and you may even have a "good" PCB and a dead motor.

In any case good luck , you cannot do anything else but try a PCB swap removing the old chip from the dead drive and soldering it on the new PCB.

jaclaz

Edited November 3, 2010 by jaclaz

[cyberkid]

had the PCB swap with a proper ROM exchange. but it's not powering up.

SMOOTH chip on original chip was damaged- confirmed.

technician suspects a stuck motor bearing. motor winding is showing enough resistance.

what should be the next step?

[jaclaz]

technician suspects a stuck motor bearing. motor winding is showing enough resistance.

what should be the next step?

If the bearing/motor is stuck, the only things possible to attempt are:

• open the drive (in a "clean room" or similar) and attempt UNstucking the bearing manually
  
• open the drive (in a "clean room" or similar) and attempt transplanting the platters on another working drives
  

BOTH require (besides some "special" tools/environment) a VERY good experience in the specific tasks.

To unstuck a bearing a certain force is needed, like:

good :

http://forum.hddguru.com/hard-drive-bearing-motor-tool-t11827.html

bad :

http://forum.hddguru.com/barracuda-7200-fell-plates-won-spin-t7040.html

mind you there is NO guarantee whatsoever that the UNstuck bearing will still allow the platters to rotate properly (centered, smoothly, etc.) but it is still far easier than doing a platter transplant and it is worth anyway an attempt.

jaclaz

Edited January 2, 2011 by jaclaz

[snair12]

Hi,

Were you able to recover your data? I have the same problem, the drive has died after some erratic behavior and was wondering how your experience turned out.

Thanks

Sunny

[msfrecovery]

http://www.hddzone.com/seagate-100536286-54006-sata-25-pcb-p-284.html

If your HDD can't spin, in most case, the PCB was damaged. This site has this donor pcb for sale for $39 with free shipping.