hello,

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

How important is it for you to recover the data on the disks?

mobile wrote:
hello,

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich

If you want to test them to see if they work get a usb case, install them,
and hook them up to an operating computor. If the drives are in working
order the operational system will acknowledge them and allow you to look at
the contents, once you can view the contents then ou have acess to recover
it yourself. If they are dead then recovery means will be necessary, at
irrational fees.
"RichK" wrote in message
...

"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to
somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich

thanks for all the replies,
this is what information I am looking for, is how to replace the controller
board. and where do I find instructions of how to replace the board. this
information is not vital, I just want to see how to fix the drive or not,
but not at the recovery prices from the drive repair places.

thanks to all for the insight.


"RichK" wrote in message
...

"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to
somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich

As posted, the replacment board must be from exactly the same model and
series hard drive. Replacing it is a matter of removing hte mounting
hardware and swapping the physical pc board from the know good drive to the
one in question. Probably 50 - 70- % success in doing so if the antistatic
procedures are followed.
"mobile" wrote in message
. com...
thanks for all the replies,
this is what information I am looking for, is how to replace the
controller board. and where do I find instructions of how to replace the
board. this information is not vital, I just want to see how to fix the
drive or not, but not at the recovery prices from the drive repair places.

thanks to all for the insight.


"RichK" wrote in message
...

"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to
somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the
controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich

"mobile" wrote in message
. com...
thanks for all the replies,
this is what information I am looking for, is how to replace the
controller board. and where do I find instructions of how to replace the
board. this information is not vital, I just want to see how to fix the
drive or not, but not at the recovery prices from the drive repair places.

thanks to all for the insight.


Ground yourself, either with an antistatic wristband or work on or near a
grounded metal sink. Undo the screws (usually Torx) which secure the
controller to the drive. Gently lift the board away from the drive. Usually
connections are made by spring loaded contacts, no connectors need to be
removed. Repeat on donor drive and fit new board to your drive in reverse
order of removal procedure.

Do not under any circumstances remove the drive's cover plate. It will allow
dust in which will cause unreliability and then failure. In any case,
there's usually nothing user serviceable inside.

Connect the drive as normal to your PC, and when your PC boots watch the
drive detection stage, it should be detected as normal. If not, you have
little to no chance of success. If the controller is completely the wrong
revision you may destroy it and the drive, despite it physically fitting.

Is that what you wanted to know?

Dave

yes, thanks Dave.

if I look at the controller board, match up rev. and specs, it should fit.
or is there something else I should look for in a control spec for the
correct board I purchase.

I guess eBay is as good as any to start with in the search for a board. or
???
thank you to the board, for answering my very very basic questions.

"Dave D" wrote in message
...

"mobile" wrote in message
. com...
thanks for all the replies,
this is what information I am looking for, is how to replace the
controller board. and where do I find instructions of how to replace the
board. this information is not vital, I just want to see how to fix the
drive or not, but not at the recovery prices from the drive repair
places.

thanks to all for the insight.


Ground yourself, either with an antistatic wristband or work on or near a
grounded metal sink. Undo the screws (usually Torx) which secure the
controller to the drive. Gently lift the board away from the drive.
Usually connections are made by spring loaded contacts, no connectors need
to be removed. Repeat on donor drive and fit new board to your drive in
reverse order of removal procedure.

Do not under any circumstances remove the drive's cover plate. It will
allow dust in which will cause unreliability and then failure. In any
case, there's usually nothing user serviceable inside.

Connect the drive as normal to your PC, and when your PC boots watch the
drive detection stage, it should be detected as normal. If not, you have
little to no chance of success. If the controller is completely the wrong
revision you may destroy it and the drive, despite it physically fitting.

Is that what you wanted to know?

Dave

mobile wrote:

hello,

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

Given the cost of new HDs is it even worth bothering ?

Graham

Art wrote:

As posted, the replacment board must be from exactly the same model and
series hard drive.

And revision etc !

Graham

mobile wrote:

yes, thanks Dave.

if I look at the controller board, match up rev. and specs, it should fit.
or is there something else I should look for in a control spec for the
correct board I purchase.

I guess eBay is as good as any to start with in the search for a board. or
???

Probably attached to a drive in which case just use the new drive !

Graham

RichK wrote:
"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich


I am in the exact same boat, BUT I have ALREADY obtained an exact
working HDD on EBay as suggested. I understand how to swap the boards
(I had already removed the one from the failed drive to inspect if for
obvious flaws, cracked traces, bad contacts, etc) and I am wondering if
anyone can suggest any good sites which go into all possible aspects of
"do it yourself" data recovery. I am holding off going any further
pending more info. I agree the fees they charge for this are pretty
extreme.

Dan

Dan wrote:

RichK wrote:
"mobile" wrote in message

I have a couple of hard drives that may be good, and only have a bad
controller chip. how do I test and how do I replace or send it to somebody
who can. thanks

I have been able to buy the same model on e-bay and replace the controller
bd. Worked fine. Mine was a 30GB Maxtor.

Rich

I am in the exact same boat, BUT I have ALREADY obtained an exact
working HDD on EBay as suggested. I understand how to swap the boards
(I had already removed the one from the failed drive to inspect if for
obvious flaws, cracked traces, bad contacts, etc) and I am wondering if
anyone can suggest any good sites which go into all possible aspects of
"do it yourself" data recovery. I am holding off going any further
pending more info. I agree the fees they charge for this are pretty
extreme.

Find out before trying it where the defect map is held.

Graham

Pooh Bear wrote:
I am in the exact same boat, BUT I have ALREADY obtained an exact
working HDD on EBay as suggested. I understand how to swap the boards
(I had already removed the one from the failed drive to inspect if for
obvious flaws, cracked traces, bad contacts, etc) and I am wondering if
anyone can suggest any good sites which go into all possible aspects of
"do it yourself" data recovery. I am holding off going any further
pending more info. I agree the fees they charge for this are pretty
extreme.

Find out before trying it where the defect map is held.

Graham


Graham - I have no idea what that is, can you elaborate?

Thanks

Dan

Dan wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
I am in the exact same boat, BUT I have ALREADY obtained an exact
working HDD on EBay as suggested. I understand how to swap the boards
(I had already removed the one from the failed drive to inspect if for
obvious flaws, cracked traces, bad contacts, etc) and I am wondering if
anyone can suggest any good sites which go into all possible aspects of
"do it yourself" data recovery. I am holding off going any further
pending more info. I agree the fees they charge for this are pretty
extreme.

Find out before trying it where the defect map is held.

Graham

Graham - I have no idea what that is, can you elaborate?

Any hard disk platter is likely to have imperfections. When the disk is first
low-level formatted at the factory a test diagnostic finds the defects and tells
the controller not to use those areas. That info is called the defect map. I'm
not sure where the info is held though. It could conceivably be the in
non-voltatile memory on the controller card or on a special area on the disk
itself. You'll appreciate that this potentially would make for some issues when
swapping controller boards

In the early days of PC hard drives ( my first was a Seagate 32M ) there were
utilities to check the disk surfaces for any further developing defects and map
them out. I recall doing this well. I even recall performing a low-leve format
using debug !

From the command line in DOS

debug enter
g = c:8000 -g ( I think ) enter

Don't do this at home ( just in case ) Don't know if it would still do the same
with IDE drives but it's just possible Try it an old scrap PC one day.

Graham