Recovery options for Western Digital WD1600JS?

[Tripredacus]

Situation being, main dev workstation suffered a hard drive failure two days ago. Initially it went unnoticed but became evident when a save failed... because the drive letter wasn't showing up anymore. It is a Western Digital WD1600JS SATA 160 GB. The drive's PCB is fried. I have an "identical" disk that was also in the system, but was not used in RAID.

Trying the disk on another computer revealed that it was not spinning up. After doing a pcb swap with the other disk, it was able to spin up, but it clicks and doesn't get detected in Windows.

The data backup from this drive wasn't as up-to-date as I would have liked, so I am interested in what data recovery options there are before sending it someplace and paying for it.

[jaclaz]

34 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

 After doing a pcb swap with the other disk, it was able to spin up, but it clicks and doesn't get detected in Windows.

Oh, noes.  

Since some 10 or maybe 15 (ten or maybe fifteen) years hard disks PCB's contain "adaptive" data.

If you are lucky, the PCB swap didn't cause damage to the platters.

Why didn't you ASK before doing a PCB swap? 

Or actually tried looking for related info?

You know, like here:

https://msfn.org/board/forum/169-hard-drive-and-removable-media/

 

Essentially a PCB swap on a modern hard disk is futile as it CANNOT work (but in the worst cases can also damage the hard disk internals)

You have basically only three possible ways out:

1) do a ROM swap (provided that the EPROM on the "fried"  board is still good AND that the already done PCB swap didn't create further damages)[1]

2) send the "fried" PCB to one of the good guys that sell "swaps" for hard disks (that included in the sale or for a small additional fee will desolder the EPROM from the old PCB and solder it to an used, compatible PCB that they will send you)

3) fork from some serious money and send the disk to a recovery company that might be able to do the same for ten or twenty times the price of #2 above or - should this not be possible - fix via PC3000 or similar the firmware and adaptive data. 

jaclaz

 

[1] this involves some level of familiarity with desoldering and soldering chips without ruining them.

And of course you need to procure an EXACT match for the spare PCB anyway

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

A point of reference for myself:
https://www.hddzone.com/wd-2060701335005-pcb-p-84.html

The other disk has the same PCB version to the rev. I could image that disk to something else, to make it "available" to be the donor. I may even have some others at home... I already checked an there is someone in-house that can do the chip swap.

Let's hope that the (correctly performed) PCB swap makes the data available. If I really think, there is only certain data that is worth saving... however having such and old disk I can easily fall into not knowing what I am missing until I need it. Otherwise, I may have the option of sending the disk to data recovery, presuming the company would pay for it.

[jaclaz]

Good

Besides the eprom replacement, when re-mounting the PCB  make sure, double sure and triple sure that contacts are clean (use an eraser and isopropyl alcohol if needed) and that you tighten the screws "firmly" (don't overdo it, but do not power up the thingy with the PCB not properly attached to the drive).

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Swapping the eprom from the failed drive, to the PCB of the good drive, and using that.... has brought the disk back to life. No clicking, detected in BIOS, detected in Windows. Now copying the data off of the once failed disk.

[jaclaz]

17 hours ago, Tripredacus said:

Swapping the eprom from the failed drive, to the PCB of the good drive, and using that.... has brought the disk back to life. No clicking, detected in BIOS, detected in Windows. Now copying the data off of the once failed disk.

All is well that ends well ... 

jaclaz

[JudytPCnerd]

I was also having the same problem with this one: https://www.getitequip.com/Western-Digital-WD6001HKHG-Hard-Drive

I don't know if it works for you but here is a solution that worked for me:

I used EaseUS file recovery software is designed to easily retrieve data from Western Digital

Step 1. Scan the hard drive partition

Step 2. Check the results

Step 3. Restore lost hard drive data

Edited April 20, 2022 by JudytPCnerd
for reference

[jaclaz]

4 hours ago, JudytPCnerd said:

I was also having the same problem with Western Digital WD6001HKHG

 

No you weren't, you probably had a different issue.

There is no software on earth that can recover ANY data from a disk with the PCB "fried" (which is what happened to the OP).

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

I must not have saved the original PCB or had taken a picture of it. IIRC there was a burn mark on it and one of the components was missing.

[jaclaz]

4 hours ago, Tripredacus said:

I must not have saved the original PCB or had taken a picture of it. IIRC there was a burn mark on it and one of the components was missing.

Typically it is the MCC that fries  in my (personal, little) experience, this usually results in a multi-pin chip with a burn hole on it, but if a component was missing altogether it was more likely a TVS diode (there are generally two of them on 3.5" disks, one on the 5V and one of the 12V rail), see this:

https://www.hddzone.com/hard_drive_pcb_components.html

but it cannot logically be the TVS as if the component is missing there is no short anymore, and your PSU didn't go in over protection mode:

https://community.wd.com/t/hdd-tvs-diode-faq/14692

maybe the TVS actually fried and *something else* (a nearby component) popped off.

 

jaclaz