BIOS chip replacement

[Chuck Baldwin]

I have a 1 terabyte western digital hard drive (full of media that I'd hate to have to replace the long way around) that I am fairly certain has a bad circuit board on it. I learned a few years ago one may replace the circuit board and fix the drive long enough to do an offload of the (sorry)(no I'm not) sequestered contents.

I am looking for someone, or a company, that can take the BIOS chip from the old board and put it on the new board (which actually is a recycled board from a donated drive). This because of the design of the board and a mere circuit board swap won't be enough to truly make the drive ultimately work reliably enough to complete the offload. The chip is pretty damn small, too fine for my crude abilities, and one side of it is tucked under an edge or overhang of plastic connector housing one plugs the data cable into. I think one might be able to pare away at the plastic overhang and not defeat any functionality quite safely.

I can do the removal and replacement of the circuit board, that only requires a few minutes at a clean work space and a torx screwdriver. Which means I will send over only the two circuit boards for the work to be done.

Thanks,

-Charles

[Owen Densmore]

Do you have a second drive of the same type?  I'm presuming this is a SATA 3.5" drive.  If you do have a spare, you could just take it apart, using the new "board" with the old drive.

Actually, if you don't have a spare, then plan B is get a NAS (Synology is pretty nice), and a pair of 3.5 drives (server grade WD).  Then use one of them to replace the bad board as above.  After transferring, you place the old drive/new card in slot one of the NAS, and the new drive in the second slot.  It will automatically RAID the second drive.

This gives you a nice, redundant system.  At least if this makes sense for your ecology.

Good luck!

   -- Owen

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[Chuck Baldwin]

Thanks Owen,

I found this place on the net called HDDZone, they apparently receive donor drives that they cannibalize for the circuit boards specifically for this purpose. However my prelim research shows that merely having a matching drive and board and an identical circuit board to swap doesn't cut it, that somehow the BIOS on a drive becomes specific to that drive and thus merely swapping the circuit board involves running a risk. IS that thinking wrong? I hope so.

It's also been suggested that I get a laptop, take it and my drive and my drive dock down to the fridge and stick the drive in the fridge and get it cool. I don't have a laptop however and really don't want to tie up the kitchen for however long it may or may not take for the contents offload to take place.

If you think that swapping the matching circuit boards will work I will give it a shot. It's really easy to do.

Ultimately I could send the unit off to a drive recovery place with a clean room, but that's a thousand bucks I really don't want to part with at the moment.

-C

[Neil]

My understanding is that that is incorrect.

I haven't done it myself, but I'm certain that I have seen people swap the entire board.

As you say; it's an easy enough process to do. I personally would give it a shot. I'm pretty confident it should work.

[Michael Harris]

I found this place on the net called HDDZone, they apparently receive donor drives that they cannibalize for the circuit boards specifically for this purpose. However my prelim research shows that merely having a matching drive and board and an identical circuit board to swap doesn't cut it, that somehow the BIOS on a drive becomes specific to that drive and thus merely swapping the circuit board involves running a risk. IS that thinking wrong? I hope so.

According to http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/250596-32-replacing-circuit-board-western-digital-hard-drive, there is a ROM chip which needs to be moved on Western Digital drives. The ROM contains the firmware for the drive and, since Internet consensus seems to be that it needs to be transplanted, I would guess that it also contains some calibration data re: the platters on that specific drive (bad blocks, offsets, etc).

It's also been suggested that I get a laptop, take it and my drive and my drive dock down to the fridge and stick the drive in the fridge and get it cool. I don't have a laptop however and really don't want to tie up the kitchen for however long it may or may not take for the contents offload to take place.

I have recovered data from one drive by cooling it and gotten mediocre results from another. Both times I used a cold surface, not the refrigerator (though the fridge would probably work best). Whether to try extreme cooling or replace the motherboard depends on whether the drive has mechanical or electronic problem.

Finally, to answer your original question, I have the equipment to rework the chip and could take a shot at it if you'd like to send the boards.

-- 

Michael Harris

--

President, Visgence Inc.

www.visgence.com

--

[Steve Smith]

Chuck -

It's also been suggested that I get a laptop, take it and my drive and my drive dock down to the fridge and stick the drive in the fridge and get it cool. I don't have a laptop however and really don't want to tie up the kitchen for however long it may or may not take for the contents offload to take place.

I have recovered data from one drive by cooling it and gotten mediocre results from another. Both times I used a cold surface, not the refrigerator (though the fridge would probably work best). Whether to try extreme cooling or replace the motherboard depends on whether the drive has mechanical or electronic problem.

I'm assuming your assumption is that he circuit on the board is flakey in a heat-sensitive kindof way?   Poorly coupled heatsink on a chip?  Or a hairline fracture in a trace on the board that gets worse with heat?   I'm curious what makes you think it isn't a platter/head kind of problem?

While you might not to set up your workstation in the kitchen, I'm guessing that cooling the drive in a ziplock bag in the freezer and then hooking it up  will give you *some* chance of temporarily getting out of the failure regime?    Or setting up next to a window (our nights are still quite cold) with the drive on the sill and the window open a crack?

It is good to know what you have already researched  about swapping BIOS's, etc.  I don't expect to be in your situation (good backups) but one never knows!

- Steve

-- 
Los Alamos Visualization Associates
LAVA-Synergy
4200 W. Jemez rd
Los Alamos, NM 87544
www.lava3d.com
s...@lava3d.com
505-920-0252

[Steve Smith]

Chuck -

It's also been suggested that I get a laptop, take it and my drive and my drive dock down to the fridge and stick the drive in the fridge and get it cool. I don't have a laptop however and really don't want to tie up the kitchen for however long it may or may not take for the contents offload to take place.

I have recovered data from one drive by cooling it and gotten mediocre results from another. Both times I used a cold surface, not the refrigerator (though the fridge would probably work best). Whether to try extreme cooling or replace the motherboard depends on whether the drive has mechanical or electronic problem.

[Chuck Baldwin]

The drive is recognized when I stick it on the mobo or in a drive dock, I can open explorer and see the contents. That access though sets off the ensuing issues, which are mainly that anything open on the desktop locks up solid and I have to reboot. And then the system acts like it doesn't want to get to the desktop from thereafter.

The times I have cooled the drive I've only gotten maybe an extra sixty seconds out of being able to offload the contents. My thinking is cooling the drive isn't going to cut it.

Whatever is the issue on the circuit board I don't think it is the BIOS chip failing, the board is recognized and it spins up just fine, it has to do whatever generates the index of files on the drive when I try to access it. So my thinking is it is some other chip on the board.

Like you and Tomshardware point out, there is something specific with the bios chip.

So Michael I think you are the winner. Would you like me to take a pic of it and post for closer scrutiny?

In talking to some guys out of the industrial control repair world, they say you have to do a kind of preliminary heat to the whole board, and then use an air solderer to take the BIOS chip off as the chip is surface mounted, ie the pins don't go through the board.

I am not uptight about this part of it. If you think you can do it, let's go for it. Give me your quote and address and let's proceed.

- Charles  

[Owen Densmore]

I love this.  Its like an adventure novel unfolding before our very eyes!  I really hope all turns out well.  Also great to be learning so much.

Bravo!

   -- Owen

[Michael Harris]

Some pics of the board would definitely be useful. It sounds like the filesystem index is probably in-tact, but something else is corrupt. I'm also assuming a couple of things:

1. That you've run chkdisk or something and ruled out filesystem errors (as opposed to a mechanical/electrical/electronic problem)
   
2. That the drive isn't getting unreasonably hot, which would indicate a bearing failure
3. That the drive doesn't "click" indicating something wrong with the read heads or driver

In talking to some guys out of the industrial control repair world, they say you have to do a kind of preliminary heat to the whole board, and then use an air solderer to take the BIOS chip off as the chip is surface mounted, ie the pins don't go through the board.

Yep, that's exactly how to do it. I have one of these at the office: http://www.amazon.com/WEP-AT858D-Soldering-Station-Suitable/dp/B0055B6NGE/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_2_2

For the curious, I put a pic of my soldering bench up on my G+ page:

https://plus.google.com/108051799458039973952/posts

-Michael

[Chuck Baldwin]

Yes chkdisk was done early on.

The drive doesn't get unusually hot.
No clicking (as yet, fingers crossed)

I will post a pic/s later today after work, 930ish est.

-Charles

[Neil]

If you can recognize the drive, and chkdisk it; have you tried a rescue CD on it?

There are a number of them freely available; and running through a different driver may eliminate your issues. Ditto a hdd-to-usb adapter.

[Chuck Baldwin]

Hi Neil,

Yes, 'tried rescue CD and other rescue software. The drive doesn't allow it, I end up in one of those all night while the software works only to find in the morning the process crapped out. The drive dock also allows me to see all contents but once I try to copy off files everything locks up.

I feel fairly certain the circuit board swap with Michael doing the BIOS chip swap is the ticket.

Pics in AM, 'am pooped out and feel like being lazy.

-Charles

[Chuck Baldwin]

Okay, the macro on this little 89.99 camera doesn't give me much correctability. This is the "donor" board.

-C

[Chuck Baldwin]

blow up...

[Michael Harris]

Cool, shouldn't be a problem. I'll send a quote and address this afternoon.

-Michael

[Chuck Baldwin]

email:

crystal city academic (at) gmail dot com

-Charles