Hard drive won't spin up

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AznGothic

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Sep 22, 2013
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I have a Western Digital Caviar Green 750GB hard drive. Model WD7500AADS-00M2B0 manufactured on Feb 03 2010. The drive worked fine for a while but then my computer died. I never got my computer fixed so I pulled the drive out and have used it several times with a SATA to USB adapter to plug it into my laptop. Majority of the 750GB is full of data that I can not afford to lose. Here recently I have had problems with the drive where it would spin up half the time when I plugged it in and the rest of the time it would not spin up. Today, it won't spin up at all. I've tried everything that I can think of. Used a different known working power connector, switched out sata cables, etc. At one point I felt the drive spin up for a second and the head went to seek and then the drive turned back off. I pulled the PCB off the back of the drive and noticed the copper contacts on the back side that connect to a stand off pin array had some kind of black stuff on it. So I cleaned it up with some alcohol, put it back together and still I get nothing.

I am hoping someone knowledgeable could walk me through how to test/fix the PCB (if that is even the problem) so that I can use this drive again or at the very least temporarily power it up long enough to get my data off of it.
 
Solution
@13thmonkey, I suggest you visit the HDD Guru forum and spend some time reading about "adaptives". Then perhaps you'll understand why a straight board swap very rarely works for modern HDDs.

In the case of WD's drives, there are several unique, drive specific firmware modules (MODs) at the end of the flash memory ("ROM") on the PCB.

See the following article:

Analysis of the "ROM" on a Western Digital ROYL HDD:
http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=225&p=548

@AznGothic, ISTM that the problem may be an internal one, assuming that the drive is getting sufficient power. If you would like to try a board swap, then you would need to determine whether your PCB has a chip at U12 (the "ROM"). If so, then this chip, or its contents...


I already know about the "swap the platters/heads into a new identical drive" trick which is used by many data recovery centers. My problem isn't the head going bad or the motor burning up though. The problem (I'm fairly certain) is the PCB board in which case I can swap the board with a new one. But I also know the boards are encoded specifically to the drives so you have to either flash the firmware to the new PCB or swap out the chips on it. I'm assuming the board might have went into some kind of "protection" to where it won't pass power to the motor. Perhaps some sort of fuse on it has blown out. I need help narrowing down where the problem is and how to fix it.

My data is critical but I had no reason to believe the drive itself was going bad. I was having problems with the power supply I was using to power up the drive and have had to resolder the power input connector on the power supply along with repairing the traces that the pins soldered to. Seeing how the power supply no longer works (the traces are dead) I assumed that was the issue with the hard drive only spinning up half the time especially since it seemed to spin up fine in the computer at my old job. Today I tried to plug it into a friends computer to find it won't spin up at all.

Saying "if your data was so critical perhaps you should have copied that data..." does not help the situation at hand so I would appreciate it if you could keep comments like that to yourself. I am looking for constructive feed back. If I had a second hard drive or the money to buy a second hard drive, I would not be here on this forum asking for help since those two hard drives would probably have been mirrored.

Thank you for trying to help with that link you provided though it would be nice if you could read what the question asked was prior to sending links that do not answer the question. The link you sent does not detail anything in regards to repairing or testing the hard drives PCB.

I found a post on this forum of someone that had blown the PCB on their hard drive. A person by the name of fzabkar had replied to them with details about his particular board, what chip would have to be moved to a new board (if he went that route), which circuits to test for a certain load, etc. I'm hoping fzabkar might still be around and be able to tackle my dilemma. Or someone knowledgeable like he seemed to be.
 


In my original post I specified that the drive is being connected using a SATA to USB adapter. You can find these adapters on many computer component websites and they come with a power supply to power the drive up as well.



My post did include that the drive will not power up/spin up. If the drive does not spin up, the BIOS can not detect it. Software recovery is used for drives that have been formatted or files that have been deleted that you want to recover. It can not be used for drives that have a mechanical or electrical failure.
 


If you read the link I gave you then you'll find that swapping the pcb's for an identical one will work, nowhere does it mention encoding,... but you know so much already so there's not much point in you reading things that have been sent to help.
 
@13thmonkey, I suggest you visit the HDD Guru forum and spend some time reading about "adaptives". Then perhaps you'll understand why a straight board swap very rarely works for modern HDDs.

In the case of WD's drives, there are several unique, drive specific firmware modules (MODs) at the end of the flash memory ("ROM") on the PCB.

See the following article:

Analysis of the "ROM" on a Western Digital ROYL HDD:
http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=225&p=548

@AznGothic, ISTM that the problem may be an internal one, assuming that the drive is getting sufficient power. If you would like to try a board swap, then you would need to determine whether your PCB has a chip at U12 (the "ROM"). If so, then this chip, or its contents, would need to be transferred to the donor.

Some PCB suppliers (eg hdd-parts.com, onepcbsolution.com) will do this for free.

As for the "swap the platters/heads into a new identical drive" trick, the only time one would transfer the platters to another drive is when the motor is seized beyond recovery. A head swap entails installing donor heads in the patient drive, not vice versa (obviously).
 
Solution


Unfortunately for you I have read the link you sent. Which is why I know what that link entailed. If you would have read your own link you would have noticed that the author mentioned trying to swap the pcb with no success. Actually the author mentions that he has tried many different things with no success with anything. Not only have you failed to read the original post by me to offer a real solution, you also failed to read the link you sent. So please excuse me for seeming rude but perhaps you should have done your research first as I have already.



Thank you so much for replying fzabkar! I'm glad to see you are still around.

I have already found the U12 chip (actually I looked for all U# positions on the board before making my post) and I assumed the U12 chip would be the one with the information needed on the new PCB but was unsure. Thank you for confirming that for me.

With the problem I'm having I would see how you would think it was an internal malfunction as that was the first thing I concluded. Upon further investigation though I have been lead to believe it is actually an issue with the PCB itself. Perhaps it is not transferring the power to the drive motor. The main thing that has lead me to this would be the black soot like substance I found on all the copper contacts. It looks a bit like it had corroded. I have cleaned the surface the best that I can (using alcohol and a q-tip) and each copper plate now has a shiny rainbow coloring to it. There are 4 pins that connect this PCB to the ribbon cable that seems to be going to the drive motor. Would you happen to know how I can test this to determine if the PCB is actually supplying the power needed?

I have pictures of the PCB, drive, and the copper contacts. I'm hoping there is a "DIY fix" that doesn't include needing a second PCB but if all else fails I'm willing to send the PCB to a company that can repair/replace it. I'm no where near as knowledgeable as you are on this subject but I am fairly tech savvy and have done many board repairs in the past to various things (ie replacing capacitors on a video card, reflowing solder on the NAND chip in a 360, testing and replacing MOSFETs in audio amplifiers.)

I will upload the pictures if you want them in a little bit but they are located on my android tablet and I don't have a way of transferring them to my laptop at this moment.
 
The oxidisation is a common problem in WD drives. It appears to be the result of materials changes made necessary by RoHS.

The 4-pins going to the motor are the 3 phases plus a common terminal. The resistance between each pair of pins should be of the order of 1 or 2 ohms. If you measure the voltage at these pins when the motor is powered up, you should see some activity.

The following article explains how a typical SMOOTH chip works.

Measuring VCM and Spindle Motor Current:
http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=204&p=1370
 


Hi AznGothic,
You may have solved this problem by now, but I was experiencing a similar problem on a WD300 (30 GB) late last week; had to reboot numerous times before it would spin up then it wouldn't spin up anymore. So I searched and the most common solution was to Freeze it. I did so, and it worked! (a couple of times, too) see: http://www.hirensbootcd.org/200-ways-to-revive-a-hard-drive/
I was able to obtain a new drive and copy everything over. I had backups but I didn't want to go through reconstructing and reinstalling everything. Whew. Hope this works for you too!
 
By the look of other people's answers, the problem is most probably far more complicated than what my solution addresses.. But I'll submit it anyway just in the chance that it could help someone.

I have a 2GB Toshiba external harddrive that was not powering up. What solved the problem for me was, I had reduced the maximum processor state to very low - 30% on charge and 30% on battery. The reason I had lowered it was, my computer has had a long history of CPU spikes and out of desperation I drastically lowered the maximum power allotted to the processor. Totally amateurish, I'm sure. I changed back the 'maximum power to processor state' to 100% and now my ext. hard drive powers up.
Where these settings are located is, go to Control Panel > Power Options. Go to Change Your Plan Settings, click. Then click on advance settings. Then open up Processor Power Management. The settings I changed are in there. I hope this helps.
 
Putting the hard drive in the freezer is a very BAD idea. If you want to get it going, instead maybe try Freeze Spray. Basically it is freon in a can. Using Dusting Spray, is the same thing, just turn it upside down. Sprey the PCB until it turns white, don't OVER DO it. But let it dry. It can form water vapor, and that won't help. Freezing it in a freezer is a very BAD idea, as the condensation when it warms back up, is going to destroy the platters/heads, and cause total failure. I tried the link above about what chip needs to be swapped. It is a dead link. You will need a board from an identical (including probably same dates as close as possible. I am not sure if WD would even supply you a replacement board. Finding a used drive, is probably the only hope, and then changing the chip, involves use of SMD rework station, and such. Depending on which chip, if it is a small SOIC like 8 pin flash chip, then you have a chance to get it to swap out to the replacement board. I have a WD2000JS that is the same thing. It is funny because I had been using the drive for over 2 years, I simply removed it from service, and replaced it with a 750GB drive, but I restored it back using ACRONIS from an Image, so I did not lose anything. Sadly the drive would be useful but it won;t spin up, just 3 clicks. a 1/2 second pause and 3 clicks. Almost like the motor has died. With nothing to lose, I took off the cover, everything looks fine, I powered it up, the Heads move from the outside to the inside of the platter in 1/4 inch then the heads knock against the center a bit, but nothing else. I rotated the platter touching only the outside of the platter, and it is free moving. There is another dark color arm I moved it carefully, it is all ok, Took board off put back on, did not see any dirt, sits on memory foam type stuff, all contacts look ok. Put back together, nope nothing.
May try hair dryer, maybe it has some component that needs reflowing. Easy to remove PCB just 4 torx screws. Lifts out. WOrth a shot. sometimes heat will get things working again. Seldom cold, but if yours responds to cold, it probably will stop working soon after it warms up. That is a sign that a chip has failed, and will need replacing. So PCB swap is the answer, if the flash chip can be swapped. I suppose Static COULD damage things, but most times it is safe I have had drives sitting out of the static bags, and unless something got spilled on it, never a problem. Really OLD hard drives develop what is called Sticktion. Usually you can get them to work by shaking the drive in a rotational or tapping on it some and once it spins up it will be ok, at least long enough to get the data off of it before discarding it to the recycle bin. Do this with power applied from your USB Brick adaptor device, and maybe shaking it might get it spinning again. Modern drives do not usually have this problem. If it clicks AFTER spinning up, kind of a kerchunk kerchunk, then that is sign that the heads had crashed into the platter, while still spinning, Often because it got dropped hard while running. Always let the drive fully stop before moving it around. Put your ear up to it, you can hear it spinning. Also do not move the drive rapidly while it is in use. If the drive clicks all the time when it is on, or when it is accessed, your chances of data recovery are limited. I use MINI TOOLS data recovery Pro, boots from a CD, may take many hours to attempt recovery. If the drive starts clicking or clanking when it starts to analyze portion of the program, then it probably is toast. I let one go in a notebook for 3 hours, then the drive simply spun down and stopped working. No hope. When the drive causes your computer to lock up in the OS, then however it still can usually get at even deleted files and folders, and does an amazing job restoring. May not get filenames right on deleted files and folders, but you can fix that later on using rename, or even bulk rename. MINI TOOLS moves the recovered data to another folder or drive that you hook up to your computer or just to the computer your using. I used it when my NAS drive started dyng, and it got almost everything off of it. Struggled a lot and took like 8 hours to get it moved. But unlike Windows or Linux, it does not give up easily and it will go past the bad areas of the drive to get your data off the bad drive.
 
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