Fried WD500 Hard Drive

[Guest]

Hello,
Please help, plug my WD500GB drive into laptop power supply and fried it !!
Bought new drive, swapped boards and drive spins but is only identified as ROM so can't see the stored info on the disk. What should I do next, aside frome suicide ???

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hello,

Give us the full details.

It sounds like this drive is part of an external WD passport that you by mistake plugged your laptop power connector into? If so you took it apart to swap out the drive?
Or an ext enclosure you installed a WD drive into that had its own separate power brick?

Are there any burnt components, either in the USB/SATA bridge in the enclosure, or on the green PCB of the HDD.

 

[fzabkar]

What is the model number of your drive?

The usual result of an overvoltage from a laptop adapter is a shorted 12V TVS diode. If you are lucky, then the simple solution is to remove the diode.

See http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

... and http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/bigcircuitboard_diodes.jpg

The reason that the replacement board doesn't work is that most modern HDDs store unique, drive specific "adaptive" information in a serial EEPROM chip. This chip, or its contents, needs to be transferred from patient to donor. In WD drives, this chip is usually located at U12.

The following PCB suppliers offer a firmware transfer service, either for free, or for US$10:

http://www.donordrives.com
http://www.onepcbsolution.com
http://www.hdd-parts.com

I would advise that you avoid those suppliers who don't tell you that a board won't work without modification. Often they will attempt to obscure the requirement for a firmware transfer by deceptively describing their products as being "for data recovery only".

Alternatively, if you are not adept at soldering, your local TV/AV repair shop should be able to transfer the chip for you.

Some PCBs do not have a discrete serial flash memory chip. Instead they store the adaptive data inside the Marvell MCU (the largest chip). In this case you will need a "PCB adaptation" service.

The following PCB supplier includes such a service for free:
http://www.donordrives.com/services

 

[John_VanKirk]

What is the model number of your drive?

The usual result of an overvoltage from a laptop adapter is a shorted 12V TVS diode. If you are lucky, then the simple solution is to remove the diode.

See http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

... and http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/bigcircuitboard_diodes.jpg

The reason that the replacement board doesn't work is that most modern HDDs store unique, drive specific "adaptive" information in a serial EEPROM chip. This chip, or its contents, needs to be transferred from patient to donor. In WD drives, this chip is usually located at U12.

The following PCB suppliers offer a firmware transfer service, either for free, or for US$10:

http://www.donordrives.com
http://www.onepcbsolution.com
http://www.hdd-parts.com

I would advise that you avoid those suppliers who don't tell you that a board won't work without modification. Often they will attempt to obscure the requirement for a firmware transfer by deceptively describing their products as being "for data recovery only".

Alternatively, if you are not adept at soldering, your local TV/AV repair shop should be able to transfer the chip for you.

Some PCBs do not have a discrete serial flash memory chip. Instead they store the adaptive data inside the Marvell MCU (the largest chip). In this case you will need a "PCB adaptation" service.

The following PCB supplier includes such a service for free:
http://www.donordrives.com/services

Hi Franc,

I always enjoy your posts because you have such great information & knowledge that can't be found any other place!

Do you by chance know of any paper or article discussing the hardware sector reallocation process as compared to the software OS chkdsk applet?
For example if a HDD "hides" bad sectors, why chkdsk might find additonal that weren't hardware ID'd, and move a cluster to a new location?
Is it the intermittancy of each running, or the hardware only looks at unallocated sectors, or signal strength? Hard to get a good understanding of the integrated concept! Thought if anyone knew, it would be you.

 

[fzabkar]

My experience is primarily in electronics. I worked with hard drives 20 - 30 years ago, so my knowledge of current technology is relatively scant. I'm on the outside looking in.

Instead I suggest you watch HDD Guru. That's where the data recovery people hang out. They don't give out much free information, just little tidbits from time to time.

I can't answer your question regarding the inner workings of the drive's firmware except to say that a hard drive won't replace an unreadable sector until it knows that the data are no longer of any value. This means that it will usually wait for the OS to write to it. Until then the sector is flagged as "pending reallocation". AIUI some sparing schemes might transparently reallocate a difficult sector if it can be read at least once without error (eg during an offline scan).

If CHKDSK encounters an unreadable sector, it will place a corresponding entry in the $BADCLUS metafile, so this sector will not be reallocated until the next time the drive is formatted. In fact I had a Seagate HDD which carried a single pending sector for its entire life. This was because ScanDisk had found a bad sector and marked it as such in the FAT.

If you would like to get hold of in-depth technical information, I would suggest you look for documentation on WD's ARCO and Trex.

 

[Guest]

Hi thanks for the response guy's, the model is: WD50800BB-00JH0 hope this helps as my wife is millimetres away from murdering me as our life history in photo's is on this drive !!!! By the way I'm in UK.

 

[fzabkar]

I don't recognise the model number.

Is there a 2060- or 2061- number on the board?

 

[jihtu]

I think it is time to take the harddrive to a professional. (here in south africa that will put you back about R4000 = 400Euro) If the pictures are worth that much I think it might be worth it to get it taken care of instead of spending hundreds of hours yourself and then end up unsuccessfully.

 

[fzabkar]

A replacement PCB plus firmware transfer should cost no more than US$50. That's R437 at today's exchange rate.

Donordrives.com is a professional data recovery company. If they can do the job for US$50, then there is no logical reason why you should pay US$500 for professional data recovery.

If dawntreader_27_11 is lucky, then the problem may be a shorted 12V TVS diode, in which case the solution is an easy no-cost 5-minute DIY fix. A board swap wouldn't take any longer than that, certainly not "hundreds of hours".

Just Google "TVS diode" for hundreds of success stories.

 

[dawntreader_27]

Hi Fzabkar, there is the number 2060 on the pcb. Any idea's who to send to in UK if I can't solve the problem ?? Thanks for your help so far.

 

[fzabkar]

I don't know anyone in the UK who would do the job for any less than US$500.

Every WD board has a 2060 number. I need the whole number, or preferably a photo.