Prateek Thakar

What is a Hard Drive PCB?

What is Hard Drive PCB?

Hard Drive PCB is a green board on the bottom of the hard drive is known as Printed Circuit Board(PCB). The primary  function of the PCB is to supply power to the hard drive, uphold speed and rotation of the spindle, and control all internal operations through its firmware, effectively, PCB is the brainpower of the hard drive that all components are greatly dependent upon.

Why swop Hard Drive PCB?

Hard drives that fail to spin after the power has been supplied can be diagnosed as PCB failure meaning faulty hardware. Since data recovery service is very expensive, sometimes it is preferable to swap PCB instead of changing entire hard drive or getting data recovery which costs a fortune.

How to find the corresponding Hard Drive PCB boards?

• Western Digital - same board number which is imprinted on the PCB, begin with 2060-
•  Fujitsu-same board number which is imprinted on the PCB, begin with CA***
• Seagate - same board number which is imprinted on the PCB, begin with 100…, and the same Main Controller IC. If you can’t find the number on the PCB (Old Models), you should find the same Main Controller IC. Maxtor– same Main Controller IC (The biggest chip on the board)
• Samsung-same board number which is imprinted on the PCB, begin with BF41-
• Hitachi–same information on the small white label (first two lines)
  
  

Hard Drive PCB swop Process:

Remove the PCB from both hard drives with star screwdriver. Replace the damaged PCB with replacement one. If the Hard disk  spins up, but can’t be recognized, next step would be to  exchange the BIOS chip installed on the hard drive. BIOS chip is a 8 Pin Black Color CHIP installed on the hard drive. If there is no matching 8 pins BIOS chip on the PCB, it means the BIOS chip is incorporated on the Main Chip IC, then you should remove the damaged PCB’s Main Chip IC to the donor PCB. It is more intricate to exchange the Main Chip IC than replace the BIOS chip. If you should do, make sure you do it on the CHIP with no data or else you are at the risk of losing data which would diminish our purpose of replacing PCB to save the data.

What is PCB’s BIOS Chip?

The BIOS chip normally comes in the form of a rectangular DIP (Dual In-line Package)or a square PLCC (Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier) package. The capacity of BIOS chips is measured in Megabits (Mb). Most BIOS chips these days are 2Mb (256KB) in size. These higher capacity chips allow the manufacturer to offer more features than is possible with the smaller 1Mb chips.All of the 8pins (4 pins on each sides) with 25P05VP, 25P10VP, 25F512, 25F1024, 25F1024AN, SST25VF512, SST25VF010, etc. are the BIOS chip. It is easy to locate the CHIP since there are not many 8pins chips on the PCB. 

In most cases, you should swap the BIOS before you swap hard drive pcb.

Where to buy hard drive pcb online?
There are many online stores from where you can buy PCB for your data recovery needs!. They provide all kinds of PCB: Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, IBM, Hitachi and Fujitsu. They can always help you to find the marching PCB for your hard drive.

Article Tags: Board Number Which, Same Main Controller, Hard Drive, Board Number, Number Which, Pcb, Begin, Same Main, Main Controller, Bios Chip

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