Seagate drive Connector pins damaged

[gqqser]

I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120 gig hard drive and I broke a pin on the connector of the circuit board. My question is (other than obvious) can I replace the circuit board with another from a good drive?

I thought that if I could find a drive that has the same model#
HDA #

and such that it would work. I am probably having a nice pipe dream but I think it is worth a shot...unless you guys think other wise.

 

[vacunita]

Actually if the Part number, and model number match it is very likely to work. The main pickle will be unscrewing the controller from the HD. You'll need to get your hands on a Torx 8 screw driver. The tip looks like a star.





----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[firewolfrl]

I have had a drive like that....I soldered a wire from the ribbon to the solder connetion of the broken pin. It worked good enough to get the data off the drive.

but then I ran a harddrive for almost a year with its top open ....it was fun to watch work... it did finally die a painful death....

 

[wahnula]

It depends upon how much time you have and how valuable the data on the drive is.

 

[SkipCox]

What vacunita said...should work just fine.

Skip

http://skipcox.net

 

[gqqser]

Thanks guys....found one on ebay for about $25.00 (ya know and $150,000.00 shipping) same everything. I tried to solder but it is just to small...even bout several types of soldering irons ....to no avail.

I'll give this a shot and see if it works...thanks again, you are all a big help.

Goose

P.S. Firewolf is the man for running the hard drive for a year without a top.

 

[firewolfrl]

LOL...
what I meant about solder is not where the pin used to be but on the board where the pin connects at.
its much easier to solder on a runner to tha pin....
I sure hope the new board works and you don't have to go my route

 

[gqqser]

Where the pins get soldered is so close together, there is no way to solder it on the board without overlapping onto the adjacent pin.
Hey...for $35.00...it's worth a try.

Thanks Again, You've been a great help

 

[firewolfrl]

LOL...OK...OK I can't help with that


wish you luck

 

[gqqser]

Hey Wolf, here is what Seagate said....big surprize

Hello Gary,

Thank you for your inquiry. Little can be done when a drive failure occurs due to power surges, physical damage to the drive, or head crashes. It is advisable to contact a data recovery company capable of retrieving the data on the hard drive. Seagate has its own Data Recovery division which offers this service and can provide any answers you might have about recovering the data on the hard drive

See the following link:

http://www.seagate.com/support/service/drs/index.html

Replacing the drive's circuit board or any other component on the drive, can further damage the drive. It is not guaranteed to resolve the problem. This is due to the unique values stored within the circuit board on the hard drive. Including information about sector characteristics. Attempting to replace the circuit board on a hard drive will end up further damaging not only the drive, but the data on the drive. It is for these reasons that Seagate does not sell replacement parts, nor does Seagate recommend or support the practice of replacing parts on our hard drives. Be aware that Seagate is not responsible for any damage that may occur when attempting this type of operation. Furthermore, this operation will void your Warranty.

For information on your warranty status, please see this page:

http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp

If you have further questions, please contact us.

Regards,



Jesus V.
Seagate Technical Support

 

[firewolfrl]

I've swapped boards on a Western digital before....got all my daughters data off the drive...but...these were drives I had purchased at the same time and had the same configuration because I had once used them as a match pair for a RAID configuration...so...I guess I was lucky.


what seagate says makes sense...

I have sent a few drives to labs. mostly its a toss up whether data can be reentered and its cheaper to pay the labor to re-input the data or send the drive to a lab. Time is also important, if there is a year's worth of accounts recievable and and it took 240 hours to input and it will take half that to re-input...even if there was only a 20% to 40% chance to get the data it is still worth the 2 grand or more to my clients especially when there is $30,000 to $400,000 in billing


I wish you luck