Seagate 18 TB HDD PCB replacement

[Fraser Corrance]

Hello folks!

I have a client who brought in 2 x 18 TB 3.5 inch SATA drives (ST18000NM000J) that he broke the SATA fittings on. I picked up a couple PCBs off of eBay with the same part number and revision as the broken PCBs. I moved the ROM chips over to the new PCBs and neither drive spins up now. 

Is there some trick to moving the ROM chip(s) on this model of drive that I am not aware of??

Thank you in advance. 

Fraser

[Claude Barras]

So there's two ROM per PCB? You moved both ?

Lire les avis google

https://www.suricate.ch

https://www.facebook.com/suricate.data/

Claude Barras

Suricate Solutions sàrl

Route d'Illens 12

1728 Rossens - Switzerland 
Office      + 41-26-508-5592

Mobile    + 41-76-586-5592

E-mail     claude...@suricate.ch

--
Data Recovery Certification Group / for issue with google group please email sc...@myharddrivedied.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DataRecoveryCertification" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to datarecoverycertif...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/datarecoverycertification/b6ba551f-f26b-4d31-b1f8-dbbe37afe192n%40googlegroups.com.

[Fraser Corrance]

These are the chips I moved.

[pbzcbf...@gmail.com]

Is there a digital signature error in terminal? If so, then the MCU has a key. You need to transfer the adaptives to the donor ROM(s).

Or fix the PCB.

[Claude Barras]

Did you try to read and assembled the rom, then unlock and write back to chipset ?

Le mar. 12 mai 2026 à 21:20, pbzcbf...@gmail.com <pbzcbf...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Is there a digital signature error in terminal? If so, then the MCU has a key. You need to transfer the adaptives to the donor ROM(s).

Or fix the PCB.

--
Data Recovery Certification Group / for issue with google group please email sc...@myharddrivedied.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DataRecoveryCertification" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to datarecoverycertif...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/datarecoverycertification/948d626b-cc1e-41b7-9df9-1e96bd957d8an%40googlegroups.com.

--

[Alandata Recovery]

I just did one of this board.

read the rom through terminal but apparently pc3k only gets 1 rom.

then had to remove chips and read with a programmer

assemble as raid in pc3k

unlock rom and write back.

Then if you want to change the head map in rom .... repeat the process.

Maybe next time I should unlock the rom and pre-emptively set head map to 0-1111111111111

Then I might be able to fix head map in ram later.

Anybody try this approach ?

If pc3k can only access 1 om in terminal then I presume you cant edit the head map in rom with terminal. - correct?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/datarecoverycertification/CAJQ9nFMC%2BzaiOs%2B5bx7oKep2QSOZkqnuLdD%3Day1SjZMgT6GwpA%40mail.gmail.com.

--

Alandata Data Recovery -  (949)287-3282  
"Cleanroom Data Recovery of RAID, VMware, NAS, Linux, Tape, Disk, Forensics"

www.alandata.com   www.alandataRecovery.com

[Fraser Corrance]

So I am not able to get terminale to even see that the drive is connected. No terminal output at all. 

[Alandata Recovery]

on my st10000 ace said

Warning message menas that drive has two rom chips on the PCB.
In utiltiy we can read only one rom.

In this case necessary to read both ROM chips using external programmer with 1.8 Volts support.
Open these two dumps as a RAID ROM,
then apply patch and save ROM to two separete files.
Then write them back to native chips on the PCB using the same programmer with 1.8 Volts support.
After that SED be bypassed for getting a firmware access.

Do not mix chips when will write prepared dumps.

Did you test the output with the broken sata before removing the roms?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/datarecoverycertification/82c880e8-9fa6-48a5-b524-591a02846574n%40googlegroups.com.

[Eastcoast Data Recovery]

Before going any further, confirm with Ace that this model isn't MCU encrypted.  

Afaik, this model is exactly like one that I had a few months back with a hole through the PCB.  

Ace said it was MCU encrypted and the only way to recover was a chip swap of ROM and MCU.  The drive wouldn't spin or operate otherwise.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/datarecoverycertification/CAH-%2BjWTWC4JE2dwSkHyiXszqEAiKGZYRC2ei1iOpLovpqXeA6w%40mail.gmail.com.