WD10EALS Blown PCB

[Sem]

something blew a fuse in my house and it seems it took out my 1TB Caviar blue (other drives and components survived)

i removed the faulty drive and it had that "burning" smell

so i took off the pcb to get a closer look at it and i noticed that the connections near a chip (Smooth L7251) had burnt out

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9051/img00030201006051834.jpg
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/WD1TB/WDl_Caviar_ Black_1TB_ smooth_sm.jpg

anyway i bought another WD10EALS with the plan to get the broken drive working and copy the data off then swap the pcbs back to the original and then RMA the drive

i was lucky as the new one seemed like an almost exact match with the broken one both "WD10EALS-00Z8A0" and they where manufactured only 1 day apart

so i swapped out the pcb but it failed to work

does that mean the power surge or whatever caused the blackout took out more than just the pcb and the whole drive as well

what are my options?
i was thinking about buying another drive and seeing if that pcb works (i can return them easy enough or should i just accept that my 700gb of data i collected over the last 4 years is gone

 

[RebateMonger]

Some previous threads about PCB swaps on recent large WDC disks:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2075828&highlight=pcb

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2057526&highlight=pcb

A post from a hard drive repair shop on performing PCB swaps on large WDC disks:

http://www.deadharddrive.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6182

"hi,
i have it in stock. and be able to help you program firmware into PCB for replacement PCB. just simple unscrew PCB and swap won't help any more. please contact me by email or MSN if need. thanks."

 

[Russwinters]

Is the 8 leg chip near the marvel cpu the U12 position? It should be.


You need to transfer that chip (keep correct orientation) to the new one.

It contains adaptives (like bios) that are unique to each drive.



if you are not comfortable; I suggest you acquire the assistance of a pro.

Keep in mind at this point repairing the drive is just a temporary measure to get your data off.

It is going to cost more then just buying a new drive.


Regards,

 

[dajeepster]

Some previous threads about PCB swaps on recent large WDC disks:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2075828&highlight=pcb

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2057526&highlight=pcb

A post from a hard drive repair shop on performing PCB swaps on large WDC disks:

http://www.deadharddrive.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6182

"hi,
i have it in stock. and be able to help you program firmware into PCB for replacement PCB. just simple unscrew PCB and swap won't help any more. please contact me by email or MSN if need. thanks."

I've changed boards out on drives quite a few times to recover data... but I never thought to check the firmware also til now... thanks for the deadharddrive.com link

 

[thescreensavers]

Damn same issue that other guy had in the link that RebateMonger posted, so does that mean there some "issue" with the Smooth L7251 chip? The Green/blue/black drives use em.

 

[Old Hippie]

Bummer about your data!

If you don't have a back-up program it's probably a good time to buy one and use it.

Good luck with the recovery attempts! :thumbsup:

 

[Idontcare]

something blew a fuse in my house and it seems it took out my 1TB Caviar blue (other drives and components survived)

No surge protector?

 

[Russwinters]

Damn same issue that other guy had in the link that RebateMonger posted, so does that mean there some "issue" with the Smooth L7251 chip? The Green/blue/black drives use em.

This drive requires pro tools; the EEPROM (where adaptives are stored) is embedded in the CPU on these drives, which makes recovery VERY difficult.

You need professional grade tools to be able to gain access to the firmware (The firmware is NOT stored on the PCB, but on the platters)

once you have access to the firmware, you can use information in those files to reconstruct the adaptives (kind of like BIOS for hard drive) that are unique to the drive, and then upload those to a new, working PCB.




On the OP drive, he is in luck because the adaptives are stored externally on a 8 legged EEPROM chip (near the CPU). That needs to be soldered to a new, matching board in the place of the matching boards EEPROM.

 

[graziany]

if I dont have u12 in the old pcb and i wont to write to the new pcb the firmware. how can i do it without spacil tools?
i have the firmware of the disk from wd.

 

[Russwinters]

www.t13.org

That is where you start if you want to do it without specialist tools, you will need to learn ATA Command interface, and also will need to learn the secret vendor commands.


You will need a bus analyzer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_analyzer



This will help you reverse engineer the manufacturer specific commands.


You will not get any help from WD with this, I am highly doubtful you got the firmware you actually needed from WD, you probably got a firmware update, which is nowhere near the same as replacement modules (some modules cannot be replaced by one from another drive)

Also, the information stored on the EEPROM in U12 position is not the firmware, contrary to many peoples belief, the firmware of the hard drive is stored on the platters. The EEPROM acts as a sort of BIOS, with adaptive information that helps point the drive to the SA (Service Area) sectors, and then the actual firmware is loaded from the SA on the platters.

You can use specialist tools, and EEPROM programmer to rewrite EEPROM from U12, but:

1) It isn't easy

or

2) The tools are VERY expensive


Regards,