[Cialug] Death of a Hard Drive...

[Eric Junker]

On 10/7/2011 8:33 AM, jrnosee wrote:
> It's a WD800 SATA drive.  I took it out and attempted to plug it into my
> USB SATA adapter.

If you are attempting to do data recovery do not connect your drive with 
a USB adapter. You cannot talk directly to the hard drive unless you 
have control of the ATA adapter, which you can't do with USB.

> Has anyone ever done a drive controller board transplant?  It seems
> fairly straightforward, but I don't know what I need to look at to even
> try to get the same board.  Another WD800?  Specific model
> (WD800XX-XXXXXX or whatever it is), controller board model and
> revision...?????

Before you swap boards it is more important to recover the data from the 
drive if possible.

I've hard that sometimes you not only need the exact serial number and 
firmware revision but also try to get the manufacture date as close as 
possible. You may be able to find a donor drive on eBay.

You should check out some of Scott Moulton's resources.

ftp://www.myharddrivedied.com/Presentations/Advanced-MHDD/Flowchart-Handout-MHDDv1w.pdf

ftp://www.myharddrivedied.com/Presentations/Advanced-MHDD/MHDD-Advanced-Diag.pdf

Eric