Small smoke from from my HHD

[biggarc]

Hi waqs was recently trying to get a pc working again and stupidly used my main HDD, for some reason at one point once re-connecting the HDD, I had a small amount of smoke and a fizzle noise from around the circuit board. I have just remove the circuit board and there appears to be no burn or obvious damage to it.
There is a chip set underneath and I don't want to just remove it without knowing what it does, as I would love to recover the HDD.
Any idea if this could be my problem and how and where can i get the chipset and replace it ?
Your hoping !

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, one or more of the chips are faulty.

However, since there is only one manufacturer of hard drives, and since this single manufacturer only makes one model, then we don't need ANY more information than what you have provided.

So yes, go ahead and replace the "chip set". Your local RadioShack should have it. BTW, you won't even need to show them your hard drive. They will IMMEDIATELY know EXACTLY what your are talking about.

Seriously though, let's see a photo of the component side of the PCB. Sometimes there is an easy, no-cost DIY repair.

 

[biggarc]

Thanks
Well I didnt go into specific's until someone replied with a remotely logical answer as to the possibility of it being fixed.

Anyway for those that would like to know its a Hitachi Deskstar 320gb ide 7200Rpm
Model no: HDT725032VLAT80

I will post some photo's later on but have to go and do the day job now

 

[fzabkar]

I was venting my frustration. Sorry.

Anyway, a photo is hotly anticipated.

In the meantime I tried Google Images, but the only likely image was this one:
http://www.arkadasbilgisayar.com/images//products/harddisk_kart/hitachi_35/HDT725050VLAT80/0A32158.jpg

If the above is your board, then use a multimeter to measure the resistances of the two TVS diodes on either side of the coil near the Molex power connector.

 

[biggarc]

Hi Yeah Thats the one, I will take it to work and test it as you suggest, I will send a photo of the other chip I was talking about later.
Many Thanks

 

[biggarc]

We are struggling to work out what the 2 TVS diodes are, I am guessing they could be the 6mm square bit's with the round inset ( 100 mZ ) on them ?

I sound like a real loser here, many apologies, but help is required.

 

[fzabkar]

This photo clip should help:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HDT725032VLAT80_TVS.jpg

Best of luck.

 

[biggarc]

Hi There
We tried to test those and my guy who is an engineer and knows a bit a pcb's said it hard to test them accuratley on the board and we didn't really get a conclusive result, I am going to try and buy another PCB, as it turns out on closer inspection there is a scorch mark next to the 5volt TVS

I will be in touch with results and thanks for all your help so far.

Craig

 

[tokencode]

My suggestion is to just find and identical model drive and replace the entire control board. Maybe you can find one one with bad bearings.

 

[fzabkar]

AIUI, a straight board swap usually won't work. The board has an 8-pin NVRAM chip that must be transferred from patient to donor. This chip stores unique, drive specific "adaptive" information. Also, some in the data recovery profession are of the opinion that using a board with non-native adaptives can cause the drive to overwrite these data.

See this thread:
http://forum.hddguru.com/hitachi-hds722516vlsa80-pcb-need-t15795.html

As for the TVS diodes, as long as they don't measure close to zero ohms, then they will not affect the operation of the board.

 

[tokencode]

I'd rather swamp the 8 pin NVRAM chip than to deal with all the variables of a board with scorch marks... rather soldier once and be semi-confident it might have a prayer of working

 

[fzabkar]

If you make a mess of swapping the NVRAM chip, then your problems will be multiplied. It's much easier to snip out a shorted diode.

 

[biggarc]

Hi All.
Thanks for all your input on this, I was planning on just swapping in a PCB, but that now sounds a little more tricky with the NVRam issues.

For now I have given up, as I cant find a donor as yet.

Please see my new problems, just posted, me and Hdd are not getting on very well.

Regards