Hard drive logic board... bear with me!

[DanSolo]

I'm trying to replace a logic board on a Maxtor Fireball 3 40gb
3.5inch. How exact does the replacement have to be? As long as it has
the serial 2F040L0, like the one I have, am I OK? There seems to be a
lot of drives and logic boards with this serial on ebay, but the
markings on the drive seems ever so slightly different (only in the
locations of the numbers and barcodes are changed though)
Thanks!

 

[pcbldrNinetyEight]

I'm trying to replace a logic board on a Maxtor Fireball 3 40gb
3.5inch. How exact does the replacement have to be? As long as it has
the serial 2F040L0, like the one I have, am I OK? There seems to be a
lot of drives and logic boards with this serial on ebay, but the
markings on the drive seems ever so slightly different (only in the
locations of the numbers and barcodes are changed though)
Thanks!

How much is the drive worth? Anything you buy on ebay will be a crap shoot.
If it's cheap enough then take a chance.

 

[DanSolo]

How much is the drive worth? Anything you buy on ebay will be a crap shoot.
If it's cheap enough then take a chance.

The drive isn't worth jack! What's on it is though... There's a few
2F040L0s out there at about E20 each (and to be honest, it's not my
money) so I'll give it a shot and report back...

 

[DanSolo]

I'm trying to replace a logic board on a Maxtor Fireball 3 40gb
3.5inch. How exact does the replacement have to be? As long as it has
the serial 2F040L0, like the one I have, am I OK? There seems to be a
lot of drives and logic boards with this serial on ebay, but the
markings on the drive seems ever so slightly different (only in the
locations of the numbers and barcodes are changed though)
Thanks!

Well I got an indentical (except it's 20gb) drive. Works fine in the
PC. Swapped boards and neither will work. This is bad I guess as it
means both the board and the motor/heads/etc are mangled. Nothing for
it now except try to crack them open and swap the platter I guess.
Wish me luck boys, I'm going in.

 

[Paul]

Well I got an indentical (except it's 20gb) drive. Works fine in the
PC. Swapped boards and neither will work. This is bad I guess as it
means both the board and the motor/heads/etc are mangled. Nothing for
it now except try to crack them open and swap the platter I guess.
Wish me luck boys, I'm going in.

Will you be wearing the bunny suit like this guy ?
Looking cool, is important when working on the platters.

http://services.seagate.com/facilities.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom

Paul

 

[Skeleton Man]

Well I got an indentical (except it's 20gb) drive. Works fine in the

PC. Swapped boards and neither will work.

Because they're not identical. It's not a case of 'almost identenical' or
'pretty close', you need an *exact* match to the make, model, capacity,
revision, etc of the drive for it to work.

This is bad I guess as it
means both the board and the motor/heads/etc are mangled. Nothing for
it now except try to crack them open and swap the platter I guess.
Wish me luck boys, I'm going in.

I hate to sound pesamistic, but all you're likely to do is destroy both
drives entirely in the process. For starters you require a cleanroom
environment to even open a drive (the space between the heads and the
platters is in the range of hundredths if not thousanths of a millimeter, so
a single spec of dust can cause irreppairable damage).

Even if you had the right facilities, you would still only be able to swap
platters with an identical model - but that's a moot point because if
everything was identical you could swap the boards anyway.

Chris