Resolved Replacing Hard Drive Circuit Board

Hi,

My Seagate 7200.9 hard drive recently died. 80GB. I got the blue screen with the "drive not recognized" error message.
I checked the power supply and cables, and they all look good, so it is likely the drive electronics are shot.
If I get another of the same drive, same model, with the same firmware
and I replace the electronic board, will it come back to life? I am confident about soldering it on, but am unsure whether this is a fix or not.
If I cannot do this myself due to drive firmware issues, is there a shop
where they do this kind of stuff, and how would I find them?
I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Thanks,
Old Mechanic

 

The IDE or Sata cable may look good, but be bad. Try an another cable. The same with the power plug.

 

Get the drive's testing utilities from the HDD manufacturer's website. Only a proportion of drives are bad when I have seen the "drive not found ", a lot of the time it is a problem with the MBR (Master Boot Records). The utilities might be able to repair the MBR.

If the utilities "see" the HDD and you don't need to recover data, the utilities should be able to repartition and format the drive.

The possibilities are:
the MBR is corrupt
the platters drive motor is broken
the read heads drive system is broken
the circuit board is a goner

Matt

 

mechanic,

Several of the best minds on this board have encouraged you to exhaust all other possibilities before concluding that this is a HDD PCB (controller) problem. I'm in total agreement unless there is considerably more to this problem that you have not shared with us.

As to replacing the controller, with most drives one doesn't need to have any soldering skills or for that matter, equipment. It's simply a matter of removing screws, unplugging the old controller and plugging in an identical substitute. This is a modular component that can be changed out quite easily.

 

Hi,
Thank you all for the inputs. On thing I forgot to mention is that I am looking to retrieve some data off the drive, if it can be temporarily repaired.
I have it mostly backed up, but there are some more recent files I would like to get off the disc if I can do it myself. If it doesn't work out, I have learned
a lesson about performing more frequent backups.

So here is where I am at:
- I replaced the cables, did not help.
- I tried the Seagate disc utility. ( Seatool DOS). It scanned and did not see the drive at all.
- The drive does not spin at all. When it failed, it did not get noisy or anything, I just got an instant error message.
- I bought another hard drive and installed it, it works fine. (So I am in the process of installing all my software, and have XP up and running.) So
the cables and MB are indeed OK.

I also read that 30% of the drives returned to Seagate are not actually damaged, so I am appreciative of the suggestions to double check the basic stuff before getting into a potentially complicated and unecessary repair.

Are there any other tests I can perform before declaring the drive dead?
If it is indeed shot, I am still thinking about swapping the circuit board, as I can get one really cheap on Ebay.

Thanks,
Old Mechanic

 

mechanic - I had the same thing happen with a Seagate External Hard Drive.
I called Seagate and the customer service rep found me the identical controller board with the same firmware (very important) in England.
After ordering it, it took almost 2 weeks to arrive. I ******* it onto the dead HD, placed it into the external case and hooked it up.
It worked and I was able to remove all data necessary.\

Good luck!

 

If you can get exactly the same model HDD it sounds like it is worth trying.

The manufacturer's (Seagate) utilities are the best I know that could recognise/see the drive, although you say it does not spin up.

 

Hard Drive Circuit Board: Fixed

Ok Guys, here is where I did about the hard drive:

I went online and did some research on hard drive recovery. There is an
interesting guy on YouTube who does forensic recovery with lots of info.
The deal is that you are supposed to get a board from a hard drive of exactly the same part number, with exactly the same firmware, made in the same country, and also (!) around the same manufacture date.

So I looked around for a week online and an ebay aution came up for my
exact drive, which was a miracle, except the guy wanted $40 which is more than my new drive cost. And $15 shipping, etc. And sold "as is ". ( Ripoff? )

I bought it, and scanned it with that Seagate Tool for DOS you recommended. Thee drive itself was filled with errors, but the electronics looked to be working.

I switched over the circuit board ( no soldering required as you noted ) onto my old drive, and the drive spun up and worked fine. (yeah!) I am not going to use it as a drive though, not after it failed. Saved my files and
removed to storage. Also, there seems to be a potential for errors from bit error corrections stored on the drive firmware from the replacment drive.

So, I appreciate the info earlier, as much of it was indeed useful !

VBR
Mechanic