Are drive parts interchangable?

camieabz · Jul 24, 2002

Can you take one circuit baord from one and stick it onto another etc?

Must they be of same model number?
Must they be of same size?
Must they be of same manufacturer?

Now got 4 from various sources. Wondered if I could salvage one or two from the crap.

~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~

scamtrOn · Jul 24, 2002

every thing must be same, then yes u can interchange them.

micheal jackson is cool

Crashman · Jul 26, 2002

I've managed to swap cards from different Western Digital hard drives and had it work fine. These were cards from the same drive "series", and automatically detected the size of the platers. I don't know how it happened that way unless there is a firmware chip inside the drive somewhere.

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

Crashman · Jul 26, 2002

I put a card from a WD 31600 on a WD 33100 (not sure on the exact model numbers, but one was 1.6GB and the other 3.1GB), and it worked fine!

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

camieabz · Jul 26, 2002

What I have are....

2 x 60GXPs, 1 dead, 1 with bad clusters. Perhaps the circuitry from the bad one will run the dead one.

2 x 20GB old WD 5400 jobs. Not sure if they're identical. Have to look them out.

~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~

Crashman · Jul 26, 2002

As long as the 2 WD drives are from the same series it should work. Even if one is 5400RPM and the other 7200RPM I think. The 60GXP's should also be interchangable with each other. If you're lucky enough to have one drive of each with mechanical problems and one of each with interface problems, you're golden.

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

camieabz · Jul 26, 2002

Lets look at the odds here.

Drive 1: Bad clusters.

Drive 2: Bad circuitry.

Odds of combination of good drive parts working for an extended period without glitches....

I'll not keep my server on that one.

Be worth a look though. We'll see.

~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~

lhgpoobaa · Jul 26, 2002

hmmm.

what i would be interested in is removing and replacing the ram cache chip

i wonder how well a 2mb cache drive would work with a 8 or 16Mb chip in its place :lol:

Asteroid 2002 NV7: The REAL solution to the Israel/Palistine problem!

HammerBot · Jul 26, 2002

I swapped circuit boards on my two 60GXP drives when the drive motor on one stopped. Apperently it was the interface/motor driver that was defective. So fortunately I was able to salvage all my data. After that I swapped the PCBs back and RMAed the defective one (It was ony 4 month old !!!)

scamtrOn · Jul 26, 2002

yeah, but that patr is not for sure. sometimes it works and other times it wont.

i was talikng about "for sure". the cool thing is it wont hurt any thing to try.

sing to prolong HDD life; spin right round like a record baby Right round round round

camieabz · Jul 26, 2002

Wouldn't a larger cache chip need a different intake of power? Therefore would the 2MB circuitry deal with it?

~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~

Crashman · Jul 26, 2002

A lot of these cards had an open spot for another cache chip, I don't know what would go into mounting one there and making it work though.

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

camieabz · Jul 26, 2002

So I may be able to take the two caches from both and end up with a 4MB 60GXP!!!

Nice idea.

~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~

Crashman · Jul 26, 2002

LOL, you could TRY!

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

lhgpoobaa · Jul 27, 2002

possibly... but i think it would be the same voltage with slightly higher draw.

as with a stick of ddr, one uses the same voltage with 128mb as does a 512mb stick.
the power supplied to the drive should be more than capable of handling the small increase in current drain.

Asteroid 2002 NV7: The REAL solution to the Israel/Palistine problem!

camieabz · Jul 28, 2002

Well I swapped them over...and there's 2MB of bad clusters on the other too. Ho hum.

I'll probably just use it as a games drive I reckon.

~ BIOS SETTINGS: Fast, Hot, Unstable...That ought to work. ~

Crashman · Jul 28, 2002

Don't forget the possibility of mislabled "bad sectors". I've managed to clean many drives up simply by deleting the partition and making a new one! In fact, I think I've only experienced mislabled bad sectors on VIA chipset boards, I don't know if it's caused by the onboard controller or a bug in their PCI bus.

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

camieabz · Jul 29, 2002

Strangely enough when I do a thorough scandisk it comes back with no probs.

Only in DOS on a "a:Scandisk d: /surface" (from floppy obviously) do the bad clusters show up. Hmmm. Now you have me thinking.

The drive is a little whiney. No clicking though. I'll give it a few more tests.

Any recommended software to have a go with, preferably nothing which will stress out the drive?

~ BIOS SETTINGS: Fast, Hot, Unstable...That ought to work. ~

Crashman · Jul 29, 2002

Sorry, I wouldn't know what to test with. But I do know that if the sectors are mislabled, fdisk can usually remove those lables.

By now you're probably wishing you had ask more questions first!

Are drive parts interchangable?

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