dead drive - replacing controller board on 2.5" SATA HDD to recover data

[artvscommerce]

I'm trying to help out a friend. 2.5" SATA HDD went bad and when I install it in a system it is not recognized in the BIOS or in Windows. The drive spins up as normal and there are no sounds that are out of the ordinary. My guess is that the controller board failed. Has anyone here ever tried replacing a controller board on a 2.5" SATA HDD? My plan is to buy the exact same model drive and attempt to swap controller boards. Just wondering how feasible this is. Due to the importance of the data, this is worthwhile even if the chances of sucess are small. I'm also curious if there will be any soldering involved.

Thanks!

 

[Coup27]

I can't comment on how difficult it is but I have heard that many people have successfully done this before so it's definitely worth looking into. I'm sure there are some videos on the web on how to do it.

 

[artvscommerce]

Thank you for the reply! I will do some searching on youtube and such. I'm convinced this is the best option, just a little worried about having my friend spend money on a new drive when i don't have any experience with this myself.

 

[Elixer]

It is more than just the exact same model, it is the exact same controller board, and the exact same firmware.

You may get lucky... but usually, they tweak those things, so you end up buying the exact same model, but it has different firmware or the controller board is slightly different.

 

[artvscommerce]

That's a good point. There is a lot of info printed on the drive including firmware rev so hopefully I can find a really close match.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Before you do that have you tried placing the drive in an external dock to see if it becomes readable? This has worked for me on several occasions.

 

[tweakboy]

I'm trying to help out a friend. 2.5" SATA HDD went bad and when I install it in a system it is not recognized in the BIOS or in Windows. The drive spins up as normal and there are no sounds that are out of the ordinary. My guess is that the controller board failed. Has anyone here ever tried replacing a controller board on a 2.5" SATA HDD? My plan is to buy the exact same model drive and attempt to swap controller boards. Just wondering how feasible this is. Due to the importance of the data, this is worthwhile even if the chances of sucess are small. I'm also curious if there will be any soldering involved.

Thanks!

If there is no clicking sound then that is going to cost you less. I used to run with my dad www.harddrivedatasavers.com 11 years ago. Drives that were dead were sent to a partner because we can do nothing about it. We would restore files from working hard drives showing up in BIOS. Depending on the content saved, even if drive is formatted 10 times...

We used a 600 dollar software.. forgot name.. something hard drive recovery... Anyhow if the drive was recognized but you lost the files you can get them back for 1k for all data. If the drive is ticking and physical damaged they can still recover your stuff but it will cost 2 to 4 thousand dollars. Im sure you can find some companies that do it for maybe 2k . I dont think prices have changed since 11 years. anyhow you need to first find a reputable company... lets do that first...then gl

 

[artvscommerce]

Before you do that have you tried placing the drive in an external dock to see if it becomes readable? This has worked for me on several occasions.

that's a good idea. I have tried this, but I think trying an additional dock wouldn't hurt.

 

[Old Hippie]

If it's not recognized by the BIOS I wouldn't bother going any further.

Bummer.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I had the same problem with a drive that kept dropping out of bios on the internal controllers. When I took that drive and put it in an external dock with it's own power the drive became readable and allowed me to copy the data to another drive before rmaing it.