Clicking Seagate drive / Swapped circuit board

[John Smith]

Hi,

Last year I fried a Seagate 80GB ST380020A series hard drive by putting on
the power connector the wrong way round - no, don't ask.

Anyhow, I have acquired an identical working drive with identical circuit
board, etc with a plan, easy so it seemed, to swap the circuit board from
the working drive to the failed drive and then, hoping that only the circuit
board was fried, to be able to boot my failed drive.

I have swapped the circuit board but now I get a clicking noise on the
original drive which last for 2 or 3 minutes then the drive goes silent. I
have done a Google and seen many posts relating to this being a 'feature' of
Seagate drives. Of course, I am not sure whether I am hearing the feature or
whether my original drive is simply dead and unsalvageable .

So, anyone got any ideas now how I can proceed - am I missing something
fundamental or can I change the controllers on the drives (If so, can anyone
point me to information on doing this?) or should I try the 'freezer trick'?

Any useful thoughts, comments welcome,

Jan.

 

[Parish]

Hi,

Last year I fried a Seagate 80GB ST380020A series hard drive by putting on
the power connector the wrong way round - no, don't ask.

Anyhow, I have acquired an identical working drive with identical circuit
board, etc with a plan, easy so it seemed, to swap the circuit board from
the working drive to the failed drive and then, hoping that only the circuit
board was fried, to be able to boot my failed drive.

I have swapped the circuit board but now I get a clicking noise on the
original drive which last for 2 or 3 minutes then the drive goes silent. I
have done a Google and seen many posts relating to this being a 'feature' of
Seagate drives. Of course, I am not sure whether I am hearing the feature or
whether my original drive is simply dead and unsalvageable .

So, anyone got any ideas now how I can proceed - am I missing something
fundamental or can I change the controllers on the drives (If so, can anyone
point me to information on doing this?) or should I try the 'freezer trick'?

Don't know if this is case here but at the place I used to work the h/w
engineers used this trick to try and recover customers data from dead
drives where they had identified that the circuit board was at fault.

It didn't always work, the reason being that even though the drives were
the same make and model, even the same month/year of manufacture in some
cases, they were different internally and therefore something in the
electronics was different, e.g. firmware, so the disk may spin up but
won't work. Kind of like when you by spares for your car the engine
number determines which version of a part is correct.

AFAIK there is no easy way to determine any such differences. Of course,
you may have fried the head servo mechanism - the clicking is the heads
moving and the pattern of clicking sounds like them seeking the first
track but failing and eventually timing out.

Parish

 

[John Smith]

Thanks, I made sure that I got identical part numbers for the drive - those
Seagate list anyhow. Is there anything that I can do in terms of opening up
the drive and swapping components? Any ideas?

Jan.

 

[Parish]

Thanks, I made sure that I got identical part numbers for the drive - those
Seagate list anyhow.

I believe that the serial number is the key (analogous to the engine
number in your car), e.g. a new stepper motor was used from serial no.
xxxxxxxxxx onwards, and I doubt Seagate would reveal that info.

Is there anything that I can do in terms of opening up
the drive and swapping components? Any ideas?

Unless you have a clean-room opening a drive will almost certainly stop
it ever working again.

One thing you could try is download Seagate's diagnostic tools (SeaTools
IIRC) from their website and run them on the drive that may well
pinpoint the exact area at fault[1]. You may be able to run the from a
floppy or you may have to slave the drive in a working PC. Try it with
the original PCB first.

Parish

[1] They may just return an error code that you enter on the RMA form
though; that is pretty much what the IBM/Hitachi diagnostics do.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Hi,

Last year I fried a Seagate 80GB ST380020A series hard drive by putting on
the power connector the wrong way round - no, don't ask.

Anyhow, I have acquired an identical working drive with identical circuit
board, etc with a plan, easy so it seemed, to swap the circuit board from
the working drive to the failed drive and then, hoping that only the circuit
board was fried, to be able to boot my failed drive.

I have swapped the circuit board but now I get a clicking noise on the
original drive which last for 2 or 3 minutes then the drive goes silent.

<snip>

John,

This is **exactly** what happens with these Seagate drives. There's a
very good chance of damaging a good drive if you remove its circuit
board and install it on an already-faulty drive.

It's a very rare case indeed that lets you simply swap the circuit board
from a good drive and get a faulty drive working.


Odie

 

[Parish]

One thing you could try is download Seagate's diagnostic tools (SeaTools
IIRC) from their website and run them on the drive that may well
pinpoint the exact area at fault[1].

SeaTools(?) will probably report the firmware version too (and maybe
even the PCB version if they have those), which could help you compare
the two PCBs you have.

Parish

 

[Parish]

<snip>

John,

This is **exactly** what happens with these Seagate drives. There's a
very good chance of damaging a good drive if you remove its circuit
board and install it on an already-faulty drive.

Out of curiosity, why is that? Does the PCB have non-volatile memory
where it stores parameters about the drive? I could see how that may
bugger up a good drive when you put the PCB back on it.

Parish

 

[John Smith]

I can't get the old drive to be seen in BIOS with either the old or new PCB.
I have put the new PCB back on the 'new' working drive and have just run
Seagate's diagnostic tool on it which says the drive is fine so... looks
like the old drive is simply screwed... I thought that I had only fried the
PCB on it but it looks as if something more has gone amiss.

I have seen suggested on Google people giving the drive a 'good slap' and
many others recommend the freezer method. I might try the latter tonight
with the PCB removed, then reconnect the new PCB in the morning and see what
happens.

Oh well, such is life. If anyone else comes up with a brainwave please pass
it on....

Jan.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

I can't get the old drive to be seen in BIOS with either the old or new PCB.
I have put the new PCB back on the 'new' working drive and have just run
Seagate's diagnostic tool on it which says the drive is fine so... looks
like the old drive is simply screwed... I thought that I had only fried the
PCB on it but it looks as if something more has gone amiss.

I have seen suggested on Google people giving the drive a 'good slap' and
many others recommend the freezer method. I might try the latter tonight
with the PCB removed, then reconnect the new PCB in the morning and see what
happens.

Oh well, such is life. If anyone else comes up with a brainwave please pass
it on....

Jan.

Send me the drive if you like - I'll check it out and quote on recovery
if possible.



Odie