Failed Western Digital Hard-Drive - steps taken and choices now?

PMH4514
PMH4514 used Ask the Experts™
on
I have a Western Digital WD1600 Serial ATA hard-drive that stopped working - clicking and no boot. We tried the overnight freezer trick with no luck.  It would spin up and then spin right down and stop but the clicking was gone. I happened to have a working version of the same model drive, so I swapped the PCBs.. At that point, the drive spun up successfully, and stayed spinning.  I even saw a new entry in my device manager "WDC WD 1600-----" but it would not mount.  So I then swapped the 8pin flash chip from the old PCB to the new PCB, and now again it spins up, stays spinning, and the device manager lists the drive "WDC WD1600JS-00MHB0" and says it is working properly. However it still doesn't mount. (I'm on Windows 8 Pro by the way)

Any ideas what a next step might be to try to recover some files from this disc??

Thanks
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Senior Systems Support Analyst
Commented:
You might try a serial ATA to USB adapter and see if you can see the drive that way.  If so, at least you can copy the data off of it.
BigPapaGotti

Commented:
I've had some luck in the past using what Equitrac_Michael mentioned (Serial ATA to USB Adapter) and then using a Linux boot CD to get the drive recognized. From there I was able to view the contents of the drive and copy off what I needed to another hard drive.
Michael DyerSenior Systems Support Analyst

Commented:
here is an example of a serial ATA to USB adapter: http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB2-0-Converter-Power-SATA-C35U/dp/B000E6NGBU.  I bought one at MicroCenter for under $20.00.
rindi
Most Valuable Expert 2015

Commented:
Scan it using getdataback, and if the tool sees some of the files (or all) that you need, register it so you can copy the data away.

http://runtime.org
PMH4514

Author

Commented:
success!
I'm actually using one of those Thermaltake BlackX docking stations (borrowed) via. SATA and based on the comment by Equitrac_Michael about USB conversion, I looked and noticed the docking station has USB as well. So using that, suddenly all the volumes on the drive mounted and I have my data back.  Thanks!

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