Help Failed HDD

[moji123]

My old Seagate Barracuda 7200 HDD has failed. It's not being recognised by the PC at all. I can see that the PCB has a small dark patch which might be the cause of the problem.
Is it possible to recover the files if I change the PCB, with one with the same reference number, has anyone tried this? Any advice appreciated.

 

[moji123]

I've managed to order one from Ebay with the same reference and rev number. Will it be just a case of swapping the board over, I noticed some Youtube guides advise switching over a rom chip which hold some key data. Can it this process work without transferring the rom chip?

 

[moji123]

The question is how do you know it’s the board?

I've watched a few guides, but won't know for sure until I test it.
But I'd rather spend £10 on a board first, than immediately give it to a professional and wait on a huge bill.

 

[moji123]

I hope you didn't spend too much on another PCB - I hate to say it, but there's a decent chance it won't work without swapping over the ROM.

I can't see the model number of the drive, but have you tried searching online to find if other people have had to swap the ROM?

No it cost just under £10, but looking online it seems you do have to swap the ROM over.

I doubt I'd want to attempt this myself just in case I mess it up.

Looks like I'm going to need professional help for this.

 

[moji123]

@moji123
When you say it's not being recognised by the pc
Is that including looking in disk management
And diskpart
Not just file explorer?
Have you tried it on a different pc?
Can you feel vibration from the drive?
Or hear spinning noise
Would be good to rule out it's not just some windows error
Before doing anything drastic

Yes it's not visible at all in disk management and other similar utlities. The drive is completely silent without any vibration or spinning.
I've tried it in a couple of pcs and used a usb connector too.

It can work but the emphasis is on can, it should go without saying that with the DIY approach you're risking loosing all the data and leaving it in an unrecoverable state, professional data recover services cost so much because they know what works with what model of drive.

Having said that if you did want to risk it I'd start by just swapping the PCB as you may get luck, if you hear any strange noises when you plug it in and it doesn't show up in the BIOS or disk management then you could move onto swapping over the ROM chip but depending on your soldering skills that could be relatively easy or a real struggle (if you're not confident in soldering SMD's then like darael suggested it maybe something a phone repair shop would be willing to do).

One of the online guides warned that swapping the PCB board without swapping the ROM can risk wiping the drive.
Some of this youtube guides make swapping the rom chip look so easy.

I called around a few phone repairers and one of them is willing to do it, says he's done it before.

 

[moji123]

Well i received the PCB board today and took it along to a repair centre who fitted it onto the drive with the bios chip.

But no luck, the changes had no effect on the drive at all.

Looks like I'm going to have to seek professional recovery help, if that's still even possible.

 

[moji123]

As I said previously, John at Lazarus Data Recovery.

Data recovery services uk. Lazarus data recovery from £140

Data Recovery services in the UK. For lost data on hard drives, laptops, USB and more. Lazarus Data Recovery provides a fixed price, no hidden costs service.

www.lazarusdatarecovery.com

Gave them a call and they have an additional upfront £50 fee if the drive has had any work already.

There's a local company I might try, they have some good feedback too.

 

[moji123]

Just to give an update on this.

The reason I avoided going with Lazarus was purely because I wasn't sure I could explain the problem without being face to face and pointing out the changes made to the boards.

Anyway the local repair company I approached have managed to save the drive and the data

Basically as suspected the original board blew some diodes when I'd connected the incorrect power supply.

But it also turned out that the replacement board I'd got was also shot.

So these repair guys worked on the original board and were able to repair it and reactivate the HDD.

Well that's one lesson learned the hard way, ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA!