Samsung HXMU050DA - Need help opening it

[Rico007]

Alright, I got a call this morning from the workshop, apparently they managed to solder the USB port back into place. BUT upon testing, it seems the HDD did not respond, as it wouldn't turn on. I will get in contact with them later to see what else can be done, in case they have some other ideas. But meanwhile, over here, any ideas?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Took the shop long enough, anyways, does the drive atleast spin up? If it does, they can try to cut a SATA cable in half, and solder directly to the SATA connections that still exist on the PCB, but they have to know the pinout, and what they are doing, they will also have to supply power to it, and try to bypass the entire USB portion.

 

[Rico007]

I just got done with a call to Samsung Puerto Rico, and had talked with the tech that's working with the HDD. I'm looking for information on connecting a SATA cable and a power cord straight to the board of the HDD. Samsung just told me that there's no authorized repair centers for this specific HDD IN THE WORLD, and that they will not give out the information to connect the cables directly to the drive. Real Helpful...

But while in this... the tech told me that connecting the cables wrongly could result in the murder of my HDD, and hence, the data. So we need to know where exactly in the drive to solder... does anyone have any more information on the subject, which may not have been discussed here before? Or in the HDDGuru site posted?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

If the tech looks at this, http://www.hxwtek.com/upload/jm20329_standardsch_lqfp48_1v0_for open.pdf

He should notice diagram CN1 on the right, that's the pinouts for a regular SATA power and data connection. U1 is the controller chip that deals with the drive.

He will need to play detective work and figure out which pins on your logic board are the proper ones, but it's just a game of cat n mouse.

If you look at this picture, the two transmit and two receive wires are insanely close to each other....
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/temp/HM502JX_SATA_serial.jpg



Here is a picture I made, this should be where he needs to solder the wires to, the only thing he has to do is find a pace to use as grounds for the drive and SATA cable, powering the drive up, that's a whole other story, I can't find ANYTHING for a pinout on powering it up.

 

[Rico007]

Hmmm, I see the links you gave me, and I assume my tech saw them too when I linked him to this forum and the HDDguru forum. I'll assume he did but maybe for some reason didn't fully understand? Some side by side comparison between that board and the one my HDD has, show they are pretty much identical. Your image makes it clear where the dots are to connect, but there are two of each color on the image. I assume the cables would go connected to the ones on bottom right?

If so, that takes care of the guess work he's afraid of doing for fear of frying my HDD. When I get in contact with him again, maybe tomorrow since today is a holiday here, I shall tell him. I'll ask him if he has any ideas on powering up the drive.

What do you mean by finding a place to use as grounds for drive and SATA cable? It sounds like an enclosure, but I'm most likely wrong.

Now, about powering up the drive, a friend had told me a few days ago, he has a SATA->USB converter. Since I don't know if my desktop has a SATA connector, and my laptop has no visible ones, he offered to give me his as he has no use for it. He said he had a SATA drive, that normally needed to be externally powered, but when using the SATA->USB converter, the drive fed off of the PC. But he's no tech or anything, it's just what he told me, and so I relay info over here in case you may have heard of something like that actually working.

Seeing as how this drive originally was USB powered, I believe it MAY work, but as always, could be wrong.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

The SATA cable and HDD power leads all usualy use a single circuit on the logic board as a ground, but, I just can't figure out which point on your board is a ground.

And yes, you use the pinout on the bottom right, I was just marking on the chip what they went to, so you could see how the trace went, and I supplied an image of the chip's pinout for reference.

You MAY STILL BE ABLE to use the USB portion of the drive to get her to spin up and power on, that is, if it spun up before, we are just trying to bypass the part of your logic board that seems to be fried, which is for the most part, the USB controller in the drive.

Doing this type of thing on a hard drive isn't guaranteed, it's just about the only way with out shelling out serious cash for a data recovery center to pull the actual platters from the drive and grabbing raw data. You will always have the chance that the drive is already done in for, or will fry upon the next start up.

 

[Rico007]

I understand. I actually feel smarter when I read you!

It doesn't seem like you mention anything of the possibility of the SATA->USB Converter. Something like this:
Serial ATA to USB 2.0 Cable Adapter with Power Supply SATA to USB

The first image is broken, but lower down you can see an image with all the components. As you can see, it has the male adapter to connect to the female SATA port of the drive, and an USB cable to connect to PC. But it also has an external power supply that goes connected to the Converter. I believe that may be the solution to the issue of powering up the drive. My friend was not very specific on how the Converter was built, so a quick google search gave me this.

I'm aware of the possibility that the drive may fry as soon as we plug it in, if it isn't already, but I have faith that the data is still there, waiting for me to access it. Although I shall not use the drive much until I can get another 500GB or a TB drive to transfer all the data to, and leave that as another backup drive (I have an 80 GB one at home)

If you think this converter will work, that will be about all the information I will need to then call the tech and tell him your findings. I believe the SATA cable he will need to solder will be the female one, as the adapter is male. (Yay for logic). I shall look on ebay for a SATA->USB converter, lucky me that my father deposits my monthly money today. I'll see if it will be enough to buy the adapter AND pay the tech.

I shall await your input to make that call.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Sadly, that converter wont work the way you would think, if your drive was purely sata it would work, for now, just use the previous USB connection for power, your drive *should* power up and then you can transfer data via the SATA cable, but, I would only back the drive up to another, there is a high chance the SATA cable will break off as they are very tiny and fragile wires.

 

[Rico007]

Hmm, I see, that DOES present an issue. According to the Tech, when he soldered the USB port, the drive wouldn't turn on. But maybe he was just expecting the computer to recognize it. I believe I broke off the little blue light that turns off when plugged when I opened the enclosure, so if that's the case, the drive may have been receiving power, but no way to know for sure. At least this one is very silent and it barely vibrates when on or even when accessing files. But we'll do what you say then, and see if it works.

Yes, I want to transfer all the data to another HDD. Ebay should have the 500GB ones for around 60 dollars by now, fully portable. I'm gonna call my tech right now.

Edit: Tech not available, but already informed the guy who attended me that the information is available.

Edit2: I would still need a SATA->USB adapter anyways, no? My desktop doesn't seem to have a SATA port to connect the drive, and neither does my laptop.

 

[Rico007]

Well, Tomorrow I'm going to pick up the HDD. It's dead unfortunately. They told me they attached the piece to the SATA spots, but no matter how they tried to make it run, it didn't. They said the USB power didn't turn it on at all. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna give it to a friend so that he can play around with it. If somehow he can miraculously do what the tech could not, I already told him to get everything out of there.

Thanks for all your help.