Replacing the Circuit Board on a Western Digital Hard Drive

So i blew my Western Digital external hard drive. I actually saw smoke come out of it. I have heard that it will cost anywhere between $1000-$6000 for professional "clean-room" data recovery service. However, before going this route, I was wondering if anyone has actually been successful in replacing the circuit board and successfully recovering the data.

I have a WD3200SJ. I have already purchased a Vantech Nextstar 3 to try to salvage the drive; however, there was no life breathed into it. The hard drive still didn't spin and was unrecognizable by the computer.

Assuming that the actual core of the drive is still intact, and that there is no data corruption, I have read that simply replacing the external circuit board of the drive with an identical circuit board will possibly work.

I have learned that the Drive Parameters (the LBA #) and the DCM code need to match up.

Is it worth it to only spend about $65 on an identical Western Digital Hard Drive? Has anyone actually been successful with this?

-Ryan

Is there anyone who has actually done it and been successful?

-Ryan

That's almost guaranteed to kill the platters unless you have a clean room to do the work in. And by "clean room" I mean an industrial grade pressurized room with micro-filtration systems.

There's no additional "sealed unit" inside the metal casing that you see in a bare drive. The platter assembly is sealed inside that casing. If you open the casing to remove the platters, they'll be contaminated by airborne dust and it will pretty much be game over.