Hard Drive Surgery - Amatuer Doctor

[snappy]

Hi all,

Firstly thanks for all the info and the best wishes, those photo's are truly priceless. I appreciate all your comments

I did some thinking and more testing last night. Perhaps it's not the spindle motor after all. The guy at the shop was less than helpful so I plugged the power back into the drive last night and played CSI.

Results:

No Smoke

The circuit board on the back of the drive in one particular region (top left with the spindle motor furthest away from you about 1 square inch) was slowly getting hotter. Therefore we have a localised short circuit.

The spindle motor itself was cold and not spinning at all. The rest of the drive was cold.

So here is my new thinking(remember I am better at fixing V8 motors than 7200rpm hard drives) the circuit board has shorted out and the smoke was caused by heat and burning plastice/chips or something.

Other thought if the smoke came from within a sealed case where the platters are how could it come out. The case is sealed air tight....aaaahhhh so the smoke had to come from outside the case...... light dawns on backpackers mind.

Solution?

Remove the circuit board and install a new one same model. Can this be done? Any pitfalls? It seems to be on the outside of the case with independant screws therefore no need to crack the case.

Then multimeter test the power supply to check it is not the problem sending a surge through.

Once again thanks for all you help, beers all round if we fix this one!

Matt

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

I would get another drive exactly like that one, and try to figure out how to replace the board on that one before you attempt anymore with the allready damanged drive. Because if you cant get it working on the one thats allready damaged then there will be no way a company could salvage the data as far as i know...

 

[smileygladhands]

This is why I crossed Western Digital off my list a long time ago folks...

This would also be a great reason to have a RAID 1 configuration.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Atleast WD is better than my shitty Maxtors... There great HDD's and all but there LOUD and die a year later lol

 

[mooseman]

It would work because the same kinda thing happened to me. I was building a computer I was testing the hard drives so I didn't put them in their slots and I just put on top of the other. Well somehow when I turned the computer on something caused the hard drive on the top to start smoking. I turned everything off and found a little burnt chip thing on the circuit board so I bought the same model number hard drive on ebay and replaced the circuit board and all works I think it was a old samsung drive (that is another story) not a western digital but it should work.

 

[desiboi]

TERE MA DI!!!!!!!

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Just get another one to make sure, because one could use a cable you cant take off with ease...

 

[GrimReaper23]

Well man good luck I can't drink beer so Coke's and beers for everyone one once we crack this unsolved mystery.

 

[snappy]

Ok Amigo's here's the deal.

I have brand new exact hard drive that I need for the surgery, the tools and a multimeter for checking.....EVRYTHING.

Step 1

Check the current drive is good and get some voltage readings on the circuit board

Step 2

Remove the card from new drive to see how it should happen on a perfectly good drive

Step 3

Do some more diagnostics on the fault drive in regards to step 1.

Step 4

Go the transfer

Step 5

Pray

Step 6

See what happens.

Wish me luck will keep you posted on the success or terrible failure.

 

[desiboi]

Step 5:

Pray for two hours at church.

Then it should work.lol.