Should I flash ROM instructions from ic board to another instead of soldering?

[fitzm]

My old HDD ic board is bad and wouldn't even power up. I matched ALL required reference numbers and got another drive off fleabay. After swapping boards, the new board audibly fired up old drives discs (unlike old one) but OS/Disc Management couldn't see it. I found out it was the ROM chips that needed swapping. I know I will probably have to solder old ROM chip onto new one but I don't have much experience using the recommended hot air gun and don't want to screw up chip(s).

Given my lack of skill, it seems obvious that it would be a bit less risky to flash ROM instructions from one board to another with jtag cable or some other method. Bad flashes are basically a death sentence, I know, unless you have the necessary equipment to re-flash.

If I do use hot air gun and plenty of already linked YouTube help, which affordable guns are sufficient or recommended to do the job?

 

[imagoon]

Depending on the drive manufacture, swapping the logic boards may not bring the drive back because the calibration data is stored in an eprom on the board. Some also have the chip on the head arm that might have a serial number block on it. Another issue can be that even if it is the "same drive" the HDA itself can be different. Flashing the rom from one to the other may not work if the boards or HDA are different revision levels.

 

[exdeath]

I've done this with a Seagate drive before. The board revision and firmware must match exactly.

Servo data along with firmware signature and such is on the spindle. If something doesn't match, the drive will halt and cease further operation as a data protection fail safe.

 

[Jeff7]

I have no recommendations on a heat gun...but I will offer up this:
Get some of these to practice on first.

I've got a surface mount rework station at work, and it's got a temperature-controlled heat gun. If that gets turned up a bit in order to really bake a component, it can easily get to the point of melting the plastic on an LED. (If the part's already dead and I just want to remove it quickly, I'll sometimes get a little impatient and really nuke it hard. Typically, "brute force" doesn't work well with surface mount parts, so that's also reserved for internal-use-only prototype boards, where delamination or a lifted pad isn't going to kill me.)
A regular heat gun isn't likely to have temperature controls, so that increases the chance of doing permanent damage, such as delamination on the circuitboard that could break apart vias feeding internal layers, or internal damage to the IC.


Is this a chip that's got the pins around the perimeter of the chip, or a BGA, where all the contacts are on the underside?

Hopefully it's not a BGA chip...

 

[fitzm]

Thanks all for your advice. Sorry for late reply.

I wish I knew the potentially tighter compatibility requirements b4. I fulfilled ALL drive replacement requirements as required by fleabay merchant. The ROM chip is a fairly standard chip with the pins on perimeter of chip. What are my final options?