2

I've put a 24V adapter on a 12V HDD. Now the PCB is broken (HDD does not spin up anymore.). I'm very lucky and found a HDD with the exact same PCB. I've been searching on the internet and found that the firmware that's on the broken PCB should be moved to the ROM on the new PCB. I'm going to do that with a soldering iron. I think I've found the right ROM chip to move, but I'm unsure.

How can I verify it's the right chip?

-- Edit -- Moved ROM chip from old to new PCB. HDD spins up and data is now readable. Awesome! Thanks for the info, guys! Hitachi PCB ROM

ivodvb
  • 33
  • 1
  • 9
  • 1
    How do you go from *"HDD does not spin up anymore"* to *"Now the PCB is broken"*? Most likely is that the spindle motor and voice coil are fried. You may have fried the erase and write heads. Besides the motor and head actuator, I'm not sure what else uses 12V. Certainly not the logic board that you're trying to replace. – sawdust May 23 '14 at 21:51
  • 2
    PCB is broken, because the HDD does spin up with a replacement PCB. Only problem with the replacement PCB is that the rom does not contain the right firmware and therefore I cannot reach the disk from my computer. – ivodvb May 24 '14 at 08:00
  • 1
    @sawdust The motor is a so called step motor. They have a driving circuit that would be fried long before the voltage surge ever reaches the motor itself. Same goes for the the rest. – Daniel B May 26 '14 at 07:08

4 Answers4

3

Without actually seeing the chip its hard to tell - but that does seem to be the correct type of chip - at least according to the guide I found here. Be sure to match the part numbers (these are etched on the chip - I needed to look at it under my desklamp), and ensure proper orientation - the chip should have a small indent on the bottom left as per your photo, and this absolutely positively has to match.

I'd add overvolting it might have fried other components - any voltage regulators (these have 3 pins and are 'sinked' to large pads) and possibly the ram used for caching come to mind as very sensitive parts. This might possibly include the rom chip so there's no guarantee this will work.I'd inspect, both by eye and with the sniff test these components. As with any recovery scenario, all this could have been avoided by due care, and regular backups. Even if this did work, there's no guarantee of long term stability from the drive, so I wouldn't recommend using the drive for anything you feel is important.

Journeyman Geek
  • 127,463
  • 52
  • 260
  • 430
1

Considering it’s the only chip you can solder by hand, just go for it. Worst case scenario is it’s also fried, though.

You can always cross-reference the part number to see if it’s a Flash ROM chip.

Daniel B
  • 60,360
  • 9
  • 122
  • 163
1

If I were you, before trying to replace the flash chip I'd try to see if your model supports firmware update by software; moving chips is a very delicate procedure, if you do not have the right tools and/or you do not have good experience with them you will not have many chances of success.

It could also happen that you cannot read the data not because of a firmware mismatch but because of data corruption. Please consider your driver motor might spin with the new controller but the previous failure could've lead to a massive data corruption before the old controller actually went out of order.

Pat
  • 3,020
  • 17
  • 25
  • Many hard disks keep track defect mapping, calibration settings, tweaks to account for different parts used in manufacture and other logical-physical translation tables in flash so it's not just about the driving firmware; there's unique personality info in there too. In this respect, transferring the flash can be a better bet than a simple firmware update to the same version - provided the controller boards are 100% identical right up to hardware rev level. A risky job without the right tools and all planets in alignment etc.. – Linker3000 May 27 '14 at 05:12
-1

If you've fried the board alone then, most likely, the disk motor will be fine. You should use your exact board replacement and simply switch the boards. An identical board will have the same firmware and instruction set so the disk should just work. You're giving yourself lots of needless extra work!

Kinnectus
  • 10,438
  • 3
  • 28
  • 41