WD800 Board swap ?

[C0VERT]

I have a dead WD 80 gig drive.

MDL: WD800JB-00CRA1
Board numeber: 2060-001102-003 REV a
DATE: 17 SEP 2002
DCM: HSFHCV2CH

The drive cannot be detected in the bios and just halts the system from booting up. When the drive powers up it does the following..

spin up
seek noise
click (loud not violent)
spin down
click (loud not violent)
repeat ...

I am a confident with electronics and soldering and I am considering getting another HD of the same model and swapping the firmware chip (8 pin sm dip) onto another controller board.

Given the symptoms of the drive would this be a possible fix for it ? Is the controller board likely to be the problem ?

 

[Steve67890]

Hi COVERT,

The Hard drive WDxx avery has failure in the PCB, but you problem si not seem a electronics it is seem, If you want try with other PCB I can give other with the same firmware. Let me know your comments

 

[C0VERT]

I found someone with the same mdl drive as mine. Manufactured 2 days before mine. I will first do a board swap, then a firmware swap and see how it goes.

 

[terrytree]

First, check Drive Management (in "Computer Management" in Administrative Tools) and see if it appears there. If not, reboot and go into your setup (BIOS) and check to see if it sees

your HDD. If it does, it's a sofware problem.

If it doesn't, your drive or it's controller could be gone. You can download a utility for testing your drive. I recommend you do so and test it. I prefer Hitachi's "Drive Fitness Test" myself but there are others. Your HDD's OEM may even have one available on their website.

 

[bigh29]

Hey covert, were you able to successfully swap the board on your wd800?

I fried my wd800jb-00cra1 last night, and need to do the same thing.

 

[C0VERT]

Hi bigh29. I did get hold of another working drive and tried a board swap without any sucsess. I think the problem was in the heads section and not the board.