Unreadable old Hitachi HDD data recovery

[Frank_CSC]

Hi guys and thanks in advance for your help.
About five years ago I woke up one morning and tried to switch on my computer with no success. The computer was broken once and for all, with no evident reason, so I bought a new one. I extracted the HDD from my broken computer and tried to recover data from it with no success ( more details in a moment ).

Last week ( after several years ) I wanted to give it another try. So I bought from ebay an identical working HDD and replaced the circuit board of my old broken one with the one of the ebay HDD. I connected it to my motherboard but the HDD was not recognized. Unluckily after some minutes a smell of burnt components came out of my pc; I immediately switched off the pc and removed the HDD. Result: on the ebay HDD circuit board there is ( what I think is ) a burnt chip, specifically the one with C6052 written on it. I can say it is burnt because there is a bump on it and because the smell came out of that particular chip.

So I replaced the ebay circuit boad and put the original one back. At the moment when I connect the HDD to the motherband it seems to spin correctly. I managed to get it "recognized" on linux ubuntu by testdisk. When I run the testdisk analysis I get read errors for every cylinder. 🙁 ( this happened even before the ebay replacement )

The HDD is a 160GB Hitachi DeskStar HDS721616PLA380 3.5" SATA.
This is a picture of the circuit board:
http://www.ebay.it/itm/PCB-PER-HARD-DISK-HITACHI-P-N-HDS721616PLA380-3-5-SATA-P-N-0A29695-BA2292-/282415463683?hash=item41c145fd03:g:TpAAAOSwQJhUhFFY

The broken chip is the one at the top left corner between the points Q2 and C36.

Let me make a summary of what I have know:

-the original broken HDD with its original PCB apparently spinning but not readable.
- an identical HDD with the burnt C6052 chip and ( apparently ) no other damages.

What I'm asking you is: is there anything I can do to recover my data? Can I do voltage measurements on my original HDD to test the components? If I find a wrong voltage can I replace the broken component with the same one from the ebay HDD? Btw I have no idea on where to find the list of correct voltages...

Thank you guys! I'll be extremely grateful if you can help recover my data 😀
Frank

 

[DR_Luke]

1. The donor pcb wouldn't work without a rom transfer from the patient
2. If the drive spins with the original pcb, it is likely not a pcb issue
3. It probably needs attention from a data recovery professional

 

[Frank_CSC]

1. The donor pcb wouldn't work without a rom transfer from the patient
2. If the drive spins with the original pcb, it is likely not a pcb issue
3. It probably needs attention from a data recovery professional

Thank you very much for your help!
1. Do you mean that I have to transfer the NVRAM of the patient to the donor?
2. It seems to spin. When tesdisks tries to read it I can her sounds coming out of it, apparently normal sounds. If the pcb is ok, what do you think is wrong with the drive?
3. I know 🙁 I waited some years hoping the recovery prices would fall but it didn't really happen

😉

 

[DR_Luke]

1. The donor pcb wouldn't work without a rom transfer from the patient
2. If the drive spins with the original pcb, it is likely not a pcb issue
3. It probably needs attention from a data recovery professional

Thank you very much for your help!
1. Do you mean that I have to transfer the NVRAM of the patient to the donor?
2. It seems to spin. When tesdisks tries to read it I can her sounds coming out of it, apparently normal sounds. If the pcb is ok, what do you think is wrong with the drive?
3. I know 🙁 I waited some years hoping the recovery prices would fall but it didn't really happen

😉

It is like head/media damage and/or possibly firmware issues.

Costs are certainly more affordable than ever. Where are you located?

 

[Frank_CSC]

1. The donor pcb wouldn't work without a rom transfer from the patient
2. If the drive spins with the original pcb, it is likely not a pcb issue
3. It probably needs attention from a data recovery professional

Thank you very much for your help!
1. Do you mean that I have to transfer the NVRAM of the patient to the donor?
2. It seems to spin. When tesdisks tries to read it I can her sounds coming out of it, apparently normal sounds. If the pcb is ok, what do you think is wrong with the drive?
3. I know 🙁 I waited some years hoping the recovery prices would fall but it didn't really happen

😉

It is like head/media damage and/or possibly firmware issues.

Costs are certainly more affordable than ever. Where are you located?

Is there anything I can do in case of firmware issues? I'm in Italy!
Thanks again

 

[DR_Luke]

Unfortunately, the cost of equipment to handle firmware issues are too much for DIY. If you don't mind shipping to UK, there are a couple reasonably priced labs there which I recommend.

Http://www.pcimage.co.uk and http://www.databusters.co.uk

 

[Frank_CSC]

Unfortunately, the cost of equipment to handle firmware issues are too much for DIY. If you don't mind shipping to UK, there are a couple reasonably priced labs there which I recommend.

Http://www.pcimage.co.uk and http://www.databusters.co.uk

Thank you!