[SOLVED] Seagate HDD repair

[Jaaten]

Hey guys. First ever post here, please forgive any fauxpas...

Anyway, I have a Seagate 3tb HDD that until recently was the main drive in one of my PCs that I killed in a particularly stupid way. Most of the data was backed up and I'm running off that drive now but I wanted to seek your advice before I proceed further with my repair attempt.

The important parts of the drive are fine. I manged to first snap the locking tab off of the SATA data connector off while relocating it after a hardware upgrade. After that only 2 of the three partitions I had on the drive were visible when I booted it up as a secondary drive. Not a huge deal, the stuff I cared about was (mostly) on the readable partitions and was backed up to my current 2tb storage drive. Unfortunately when I was playing around with a USB 3.0 external SATA connector the last a SATA data pin snapped off and the drive can no longer be read.

I'm aware that replacement PCBs exist for not exorbitant amounts of money, and while I've never done that swap on a HDD, it looks to be well within my abilities. My question was could I potentially get lucky and just replace the SATA power and data bracket for like $5

I imagine not because of the broken pin, but I'm an optimist.

Also, given your experience, how likely is it I'll be able to recover my files from the third partition? Not the biggest deal if they're not recoverable, as I said, I got the important ones, but...

Thanks in advance for the help.

Jaa

 

[ex_bubblehead]

There's more to it than just swapping the board. You also have to transfer the chip/s that hold the low level mapping for such things as bad sector and spare sector maps. Not doing this will very quickly (if not instantly) render the drive toast. Drives are cheap, replace it.

 

[Jaaten]

Everything I've seen seems to indicate it's a single bios chip that needs to be swapped. Hopefully that's true, though I take your point. There are some system files I'd like to recover but If I can get a good deal I'll probably just cut my losses and clone my backup.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

The other issue with simply swapping the controller is that the new one must be an EXACT match to the old, including all revision numbers.

 

[Jaaten]

Finding the exact model board wasn't hard, but according to the seller revision numbers are all interchangeable and NO ONE is willing to guarantee a particular rev is shipped.

 

[popatim]

I would at least attempt to replace the sata/power connector before going the board route myself but then I know my soldering abilities and only you know yours.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Finding the exact model board wasn't hard, but according to the seller revision numbers are all interchangeable and NO ONE is willing to guarantee a particular rev is shipped.

Data recovery is a completely different ballgame. If you expect to recover anything at all you must match all parts exactly. No exceptions. Failure to do so is pretty much guaranteed to result in no usable data.

 

[fzabkar]

Be aware that you must not damage the ROM ("BIOS") chip. There are only a handful of people who claim to be able to recover a Seagate F3 drive with a missing ROM, and their charges are very high.

Suppliers such as hdd-parts.com offer a free ROM transfer service.