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walterlee78 · Active contributor Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 6

Anyone with success if the PCB is not identical. Also, my drive died because the power was put in backwards (the plastic thing that prevents had chipped off and I feel like an idiot) If I were to find a replacement PCB board, would this have a chance of fixing it?

My dead drive

WD2500JB - 00GVC0
2061-701265 - 200 AH
Date 02 SEP 2005

Best Buy in Miami is currently selling drives from FEB 06 in boxes that aren't clear. I bought one to find out the date and the pcb of the one I got is 2061-701292 ....

I wonder if this will work. I may try it if I do not find one.

walterlee78 · Active contributor Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 6

I found an exact match as far as PCB goes and the firmware chip version is also the same. The only difference I noticed is that the foam was a different color.

Initially, the bios would recognize it and windows detects it but I cant access the drive at all and my system is very slow. I tried chkdsk and it fails. I eventually gave up and shutdown.

When I tried booting up a few minutes later, I heard the noise. The Bios wouldnt recognize it. I let the drive cool down for an hour or so and try it again. Again, the bios picks it up but I still can't get to the files?

Should I try another PCB board? Western Digital has a tool that can copy the partition - should I try this? (I started it up and it recognized the drive. At the time, I did not have another drive big enoug to copy the partition to) or is there another data recovery tool?

happyhappy · Deadharddrive regular Joined: 14 Jan 2006 Posts: 22

Although I was working on a Maxtor drive, I had a similar experience, i.e. after swapping logic boards the dead drive started up and was recognized by bios but not by anything else.

It could be that the boot sector of the drive has been corrupted. There may be a way to repair that but thats out of my realm and I'm sure it would be non-trivial, not to mention potentially risky to the files that may still be present on the drive.

I suggest using the free trial version of GetDataBack at getdataback.com. I did this and it found nearly every file I wanted to recover. In your case that could at least confirm that your files are still intact on the drive. You then need to decide whether to pay $80 for the license key that enable recovery of the files found. But the free trial version at least can give you a picture of what still is intact on the drive.

If you try that, MAKE SURE you install and run the trial version properly. That involves installing the software without the problem drive connected. Once installed, connect the problem drive before rebooting. I believe the software then detects any drive detected by bios that wasn't there before and does a low level sector by sector scan of it.

Personally, I'd do this before trying to image the drive. I have read things that suggest that the SMART technology built into the drive will "do things" when that is done even though it may not be apparent.

And by all means get a large capacity drive ready whatever you do. Although there is a good chance your important files still exist I don't think you want to be monkeying with your problem drive any more than you have to.

techguy_877 · Active contributor Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 8

walterlee

Let me say, I feel your pain as I went through this last September/October with a WD 2500 drive. After some effort, I was able to successfully find a substitute PCB, but I wonder today if I was just lucky it ultimately worked without a swap of the firmware chip from the bad board to the good one.

In case you did not see it, my hard drive story is located HERE. I believe this would be relevent to what you are trying to do.

What is the week / year of the boards you were trying to swap (located on underside of PCB - something like "2205", "1505", etc.)? I believe those need to be close, although mine were 5 weeks apart. My drive was two years older, and that might make a difference also.

What is the full model number of the damaged board? It is on the white sticker which in your case is "2061 ........... " I have a couple of PCBs left from my problems and will look to see if I have anything close. Mine are probably too old, but it does not hurt to check.

walterlee78 · Active contributor Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 6

thanks for all the replies and the site. I eventually found a matching pcb board and did the swap. I did not need to do a firmware chip swap. I guess I really fried my board because the bios would recognize it and then it would not recognize it. I used a data recovery program and was able to get some of my files back.

Thanks

disco340 · Posted once Joined: 16 May 2006 Posts: 1

Can you tell me/us what parts you got to match. I also have 2 fried WD hard drive's but am lost as to what I need to match.

MDL: WD600BB-00CAA1
DATE: 11 APR 2002
DCM: HSFHCV2AA / HSEHCV2AA

Does everything need to match? is there other info I should be looking for as well?

Thnaks

ranikolahdd · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 9:34 pm Post subject: hdd board

there are difrences in rom chips even on a same boards
expecialy on wd
contact me on skype i am ranikolahdd
we can chat about this
_________________
hdd repair is my game

fixt_one · Officially active! Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 2

Bad drive a WD 160GB drive. Did not have high hopes after talking to numerous very in the know folks...density issues with larger drives, etc.

Frazzled Drive: (BIOS did not recognize anymore, no spinup etc)
Western Digital part number: WD1600BB-22FTA0
Date: 30 Mar 2004
DCM: HSBACTJAH (not sure what this is, but was in same blocked area as above #'s)

New Drive off ebay (keep a running search on ebay for the HD part #)
WD1600BB-00FTA0
Date: 18 May 2004
DCM: HSBHCTJAH

replaced logic board, put drive in USB enclosure. Success! Was able to copy all contents from USB drive over to new PC.

ranikolahdd · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:38 am Post subject: re

u were luckey, they often burin inside and leave trace on platters
_________________
hdd repair is my game

bvu · Active contributor Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 5

Hi All,

My WD2500JB is dead. After detaching the PCB from the drive and researching on the web, I learned that the motor control chip was burned (it seems that this has happened to a lot of WD2500 Sad

).

So if someone has the matching PCB please contact me. I would really appreciate it.

My PCB number : 2061-001179-000-DM
My Email: vutbao@yahoo.com

Thank you very much.

God bless
Bao

ranikolahdd · Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject: re

contact me over skype
my nick is ranikolahdd
_________________
hdd repair is my game

bvu · Active contributor Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 5

Hi ranikolahdd,

Do you have the matching PCB?
I don't have Skype Sad

.

But you can Email me at vutbao@yahoo.com (I realized that I did not leave the contact info. in my previous post, just updated Smile

)

Thanks
-Bao

hddstudio

xetrov123 · Posted once Joined: 07 May 2007 Posts: 1

I also have a dead WD2500JB. The motor control chip fried. I have PCB # 2061-701292-C00 AC XC 3E10 OPTT B 0001050 7051. If anyone has one of these boards or knows of a supplier, I would really appreciate it! My E-mail is xetrov123@gmail.com. Thanks!

Chris