Hitachi PCB swapping

[red4u]

Hi guys, i'm hoping to find some help here.

My Hitachi external hard drive has stopped working a while back. I've been trying to find a matching PCB ever since, in hopes to recover the lost data, but seems like it's quite a hard task.

I have managed to find something that has everything matching except one small difference. The white sticker on the PCB. Mine says "0A58732 DA2739C". The one I found says "0A58732 DA2739D". How crucial that C vs. D can be? I'm truly desperate.. every time I think I find something there's one tiny thing that's not matching right.

 

[trekzone]

Newer drives just don't simply work by a straight PCB swap even if it has the same model, batch and firmware. There are unique micro codes that are stored in a ROM on the drives own PCB. Thus, swapping the PCB with a matching, working equivalent PCB has almost no chance of working and can be possibly dangerous to your data.

 

[red4u]

How far does "newer" go? i'm totally clueless about these sort of things. I am talking about Hitachi simpleDrive mini (Dec 2009). No chance?

Also, why is it dangerous to the data? If I swap back to the old PCB shouldn't it be fine?

 

[trekzone]

If you don't have enough knowledge and experience about HDD PCB swapping then I think that DIY solution isn't an option for you to recover your files from your failed hard drive. I suggest that you should seek or consult a professional data recovery service to retrieve your data from the drive. I have the best luck with WeRecoverData so far in recovering some of our important data from a failed storage drive. I know how frustrating it is to lost an important data that's why it is always recommended that you always have backups of those important files that you can't afford to lose.

 

[red4u]

That actually was my backup, I just got really unlucky unfortunately. My old pc was dying on me so I transferred all the data to another pc through that 500gb external hard drive while I still could (I had to do it in chunks cuz I had way more than 500gb on that computer). The last chunk I just left on the external hard drive without transferring it to the other pc. I really wasn't expecting the external hard drive to die on me as well. Unfortunately, that last chunk that was left on it was the most important one. Needless to say that before it happened I had already formatted the original old hard drive in hopes to save the old pc.

I've already sent the old hard drive to recovery but the guy couldn't find anything of use on it. I now purchased a SATA/IDE to USB adapter to see if I can salvage something myself.. chances are very slim though.
The external hard drive was also sent to the same place and that's when I was told to try and maybe find a matching PCB.
I know i'll probably end up taking it to another more serious place. It's a little scary though.. rumor has it prices can be crazy 😉 plus the fact that if it doesn't work then that would be the last nail in the coffin for sure.
I am hoping for the best. Thanks for the advice!