wrote:

On Friday, May 21, 2004 5:07:20 PM UTC-7, R3Jar wrote:
Has anybody repaired a hardrive? I have a quantum fireball 30 GB hardrive that
when my house caught on fire it looks like a small surface mount chip on the
printed circuit board fried. The board looks like it could be replaced. It is
on the bottom of the drive and the connector is attached to it. The drive has
essential data on it and I think I could swap it out and be back in business.
Anybody have any thoughts on this?

If the data is that essential, send it out to a pro.

Apparently the circuit board for a drive that old can be swapped with any other of the same model and version (a model can come in more than one version) because those boards aren't tuned to the particular drive's individual heads and servo, as they are with newer drives. OnePCBsolution.com sells replacement boards, and for newer boards that have to be tuned, will swap the original board's BIOS chip into it for an extra $50.

If the surface mount chip has 2 terminals and is near the power connector, it could be an overvoltage protector, essentially a zener diode rated for either about 6.5V (for the +5V supply) or 14V (for the +12V supply), and it probably caused a nearby fuse to also blow. You have to replace any blown fuses, and you should replace the voltage protector to prevent even worse damage later. Those parts are common.

Some old Quantum and Maxtor HDs have 8-pin IRF7107 chips:

http://www.irf.com/product-info/data...ta/irf7107.pdf

or equivalent -- some drives instead had National Semiconductor chips) that would blow. 3 are used to spin the motor, 3 others to move the heads.


Do you think he's waited _eight years_ for your help? ;-)