Question Seagate SSHD PCB burned?

[vandresx]

hi, i have a SSHD from Seagate and it's been 2 years since i bought it, now it doesn't appear in any bios or disk management from windows, it appears to trigger an error on it, the disk sounds like it's running tho.
what should i do... should i try to repair it removing/replacing the diode, should i replace the whole board and exchange bios? or maybe it's something else...
my problem started when i was playing League of Legends and it started to get 100% use on task manager, only that disk (i got 3), when it's on 100% everything related to that disk it freezes or stops working (games, file explorer, apps) when it is in that state it won't let me shut down/reestart the pc (this SSHD is not the C drive, C drive is a Sandisk SSD), this proccess i tried to solve it by shutting down the power of the pc (it wont turn off by itself even if an hour passes) this whole proccess happened like 10 times and then the disk won't show anymore on bios or anywhere else, so... i opened it and find that some diode appears to have burn damage.

Here it is:

The whole PCB:

https://imgur.com/TzU6ILE

View: https://imgur.com/TzU6ILE

The PCB zoomed in to the problem:

https://imgur.com/O6chaX8

View: https://imgur.com/O6chaX8

A posible problem, burned diode?:

https://imgur.com/qATOHjp

View: https://imgur.com/qATOHjp

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Replace the drive --- you've effectively rendered it useless anyway by opening it and allowing ingress of dust particles.
Mechanical hard drives are assembled in a dust-free environment known as a "clean room" to prevent that happening.

 

[vandresx]

Replace the drive --- you've effectively rendered it useless anyway by opening it and allowing ingress of dust particles.
Mechanical hard drives are assembled in a dust-free environment known as a "clean room" to prevent that happening.

I never opened it, the disk it's fine, i only remove the "PCB" the logic board, the one un the pictures, the platters are fine and besides i have no screwdriver to open that part, and the question is if something in the PCB appears to be burned or damaged...

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I never opened it, the disk it's fine, i only remove the "PCB" the logic board, the one un the pictures, the platters are fine and besides i have no screwdriver to open that part, and the question is if something in the PCB appears to be burned or damaged...

Ah, I see, you mean the external logic board that's on the underside of the drive unit? That's fine then, my bad.

I know nothing about drive electronics so I can be of no further help, except to say I would simply buy a new drive (though not a hybrid one, and not Seagate)
because personally I couldn't do with the hassle of trying to find what's wrong with existing one, life's too short, especially when you're 70 (me).

 

[USAFRet]

2 years.
Why isn't this just a warranty replacement?

 

[vandresx]

2 years.
Why isn't this just a warranty replacement?

i live in south america and right now i don't have enough money to send the drive to Seagate, i posted here because i wanted to know if it looks like burnt damage component or something needed to be replaced, i watched a lot of videos on youtube that technicians can replace dead components on the pcb and make the drive work at least to make a backup of the data

 

[Bakanekora]

I have a 2TB Firecuda too, and it just went silently dead recently. I used it as external through a hdd box. One day I just copied some data to the HDD, then turn off the box power and un-plug the Firecuda from it (to swap to another hdd). The next time I plug the Firecuda in, it just lied there silently (no sound, no spin, no red light), the PCB show no sign of damage. I watched many video on Youtube too, and mostly the case is short diode or fuse. But the PCB board is so small as so are the components, and there no character notation anywhere on the board, it's so hard to make out what is what.
I'm just a noob at this kind of thing... From what I've learned, I think there may be only one diode (the pure small black block right under the power adapter) and the fuses are on the top right. There're 2 kinds of (single stripe) block, skin color and black. I think the skin color blocks are capacitors, but I don't know what the black blocks are (resistor or fuse, which is safe to remove?). To be honest, I don't even know how hdd's fuse look like...
Can anyone tell me how to find and check the fuse with the multimeter (which chanel to use and which value indicate that it's working)... I don't have money to get the hdd fixed, the data is not so important but if possible, I want to take them back.

 

[fzabkar]

@Bakanekora, the usual problem with Seagate's SSHDs is a failure/corruption of the NAND cache IC. In some cases it can be reinitialised via the drive's terminal port, but I'm not sure if your model is a suitable DIY candidate. In any case you can see the error message if you connect the drive to a USB-TTL adaptor. There are some instructions at hddoracle.com.

 

[Bakanekora]

@fzabkar, at first I was too hasty, I remove the diode below the power adapter. But after that, I checked for the continuity on that place, and it's still shorted (beep..). So I thought it was some other places. I heard that to check on fuses, you need to take them out first. I don't know how to find the fuse, so I'm stuck... I'm afraid that if I take the wrong parts out, it will be really hard to put them back.
Does your case cause shorted too? If so then it's too bad, I don't have appropriate tools to fix it...

 

[fzabkar]

I believe these are the components in that area:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST1000LX015_TVS_fuse.jpg

I could be wrong about the fuse, though. You would need to measure its continuity with +5V and ground to be sure where it connects.

 

[Bakanekora]

@fzabkar, I checked continuity for all the blocks and have short all over the board. The fuse have value of 0 ohm so I don't think it's blown. The capacitors have reading on boths side too (not 0), how do I know they're dead or not? What do you suggest I should do?

 

[fzabkar]

It doesn't look like a PCB fault. You should start by purchasing a USB-TTL adaptor (approx US$5) and retrieving a diagnostic report from the drive's terminal port. I'm not sure that this will help you, though,


Edit:

You may be able to get away with a PCB swap and firmware transfer.

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34804&start=20

I suggest that you perform a secure erase on your donor HDD to ensure that the donor's NAND cache is clear, otherwise the donor's cached data may contaminate the patient.

Other threads:

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36285
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35857
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35895

 

[Bakanekora]

Okay, I can't do anything right now. Save the info for later.
Thank you for your advice, @fzabkar.