WD Caviar Green PCB swap failiure, donor drive now KIA

fabulo19

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Jan 17, 2015
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Hello!

I've had a 2012 WD Green with a broken SATA data connector lying around with loads of files that I want to get off of it. In a desperate attempt to save it, I pulled the PCB off a 2011 WD Blue, which to my untrained eye looked similar. I tried it, and it didn't work, which isn't very surprising now that I know what exactly I've gotten into.

Problem is, I seem to have killed the PCB from the Blue, which I realized (way too late) contained a lot of my project files. It shows no sign of life when I plug it in. The Green on the other hand starts up fine with the original PCB, although the SATA data connector is still broken.

I know I've screwed up bigtime, and most likely lost all that data. So, my question now is, what are my options? I'm open for suggestions.
 
Hey there, fabulo19.

Sorry to hear about the issues you are having with your drives. 🙁
Unfortunately the whole PCB swapping thing is really not recommended - there's a chance that this wouldn't have worked even if the drives were the same model. As for the WD Blue drive's PCB, it might have been damaged somehow while you were removing/connecting it to the WD Green drive. In my opinion your best and most reliable option is professional solution, such as a data recovery company. You could take a look here: Data Recovery Partners

I hope you're able to get your important files back. Fingers crossed and good luck!
Boogieman_WD
 


X2 on this, PCB swaps no longer work on modern drives compared to older drives because there is addaptives data written to the EEPROM on the PCB specific to the drive.

Only a professional data recovery lab can help to diagnose and recover from problems due to the kind of corruption having the wrong adaptives/PCb can cause.