Had an "incident" at the weekend which resulted in the SATA terminals on my hdd being burnt away. Now upon reading up on the issue, I have found even after obtaining a new PCB it is still required to desolder the HDD bios chip and swap onto the new board. Has anyone had success doing this? Has anyone had luck in NOT having to swap the chip? The HDD contains the past few years of music productions and the contents are very important. Im concerned about tampering with this chip and losing access forever.
Swapping a BIOS chip on HDD PCB
- Thread starter dazzlaa
- Start date
If your data is that valuable to you I would send it off for data recovery.
the last thing you want to do is break the PCB or make things worse trying to fix it.
Some people have got away with just swapping the PCB over, not never heard of anyone swapping over the bios but this is something I have never looked in to as I tend to do backups.
the last thing you want to do is break the PCB or make things worse trying to fix it.
Some people have got away with just swapping the PCB over, not never heard of anyone swapping over the bios but this is something I have never looked in to as I tend to do backups.
The data is important but after muchos research I think I am well equipped to sort this out. As long as the platter itself wasn't damaged then hopefully just getting a working logic board should be enough. I managed to find a donar drive with the same location manufacture code, 60% same serial number and date code, exact same firmware and exact same model number.
If it doesn't see the volumes as is then yes, It is going to need the transfer of the Bios chip which is a little 8 legged chip on the board. Hoping it does not come to that though!
If anyone stumbles across this in the future with a similar issue then I hope you get the same luch as me finding a donar drive. I will post my results....
dI have exactly the same issue at the moment, and judging by how small the bios chip is on the PCB I am not sure if I will be able to do this myself :/ would a normal soldering iron with a fine tip be OK to use or would I need some kind of special equipment to solder something so small?
Deleted member 138126
D
Deleted member 138126
You need a heat gun and lots and lots of "flux". Oh, and a microscope. Check out Louis Rossman videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup
Im lucky as a guy at work says he is pretty well equipped for this task so he is fetching his gear into work to do the swap for me. I imagine it needs a soldering Iron that can regulate temperature and use a very small tip. A solder sucker would be essential too but as suggetsed I have heard a heat gun is good for removal.
My doner drive was pretty identical and unfortunately the drive would not work after the swap so at this point a bios swap is my last chance to recover the data before having to pay.
Was worried because when I swapped the PcB the drive was doing the "click of death". It seems with incorrect look up tables that are present with a wrong bios makes the heads lose their start points giving the clicking sound similar to when the heads are broken.
did the BIOS/ROM chip swap yesterday. Got the drive home, connected up and nothing. The clicking sound was gone though and the drive was spinning. Checked mobo bios and it was being seen.
Two reboots later however and the drive was being read by windows and all is working perfectly.
Spent all night backing up and I am a very happy man.
Thanks for all suggestions.
did the BIOS/ROM chip swap yesterday. Got the drive home, connected up and nothing. The clicking sound was gone though and the drive was spinning. Checked mobo bios and it was being seen.
Two reboots later however and the drive was being read by windows and all is working perfectly.
Spent all night backing up and I am a very happy man.
Thanks for all suggestions.
Congratulations Dazzlaa, glad you got your drive working, I am still trying to decide if to pay someone else to do the PCB/ROM replacement for me or give it ago myself, yet to find anywhere cheap and recommended enough to do the BIOS chip change yet though 
As really can't afford for this to not work as really want my data back.
As really can't afford for this to not work as really want my data back.It
It wasn't too troublesome actually. If you have soldering experience you should be ok. Just use a solder sucker to pull up the excess and flux to get the new solder to stick.
The bios chip for me was a 25x40bl winbond chip. There was another 8 legged chip close by but didn't have to touch that one.
Where abouts are you? If you are in Lincolnshire we could help out? Otherwise I'd recommend getting in touch with an electronics shop or a company which offers this specific service. I found one in Canada who weren't too expensive.
Congratulations Dazzlaa, glad you got your drive working, I am still trying to decide if to pay someone else to do the PCB/ROM replacement for me or give it ago myself, yet to find anywhere cheap and recommended enough to do the BIOS chip change yet though
It wasn't too troublesome actually. If you have soldering experience you should be ok. Just use a solder sucker to pull up the excess and flux to get the new solder to stick.
The bios chip for me was a 25x40bl winbond chip. There was another 8 legged chip close by but didn't have to touch that one.
Where abouts are you? If you are in Lincolnshire we could help out? Otherwise I'd recommend getting in touch with an electronics shop or a company which offers this specific service. I found one in Canada who weren't too expensive.