First and foremost (thank you ) for sharing youre skill set with me/us/the world. For the past two weeks I have been reading or watching every thing I can abought this kind of problem with hard drives. You are the first info video that drove the topic all the way home "at least 4 me.". I have struggled with learning disabilities for 40+ years, and I was able to get it on the first-round with youre demistration. Thanks again!!

I just want to say thank you for this post. This worked for me on a very old hard drive which wouldn't power up. Thankfully replacing the PCB from an identical working HDD worked on the first attempt and saved me a lot of time and expense (sending it off to a data recovery company) Keep up the good work.

A wealth of knowledge! thank you, sir.

That harddrive was giving out some nice tunes.

Thanks for the demo. It’s great to know there is still hope for my old drive. Will be looking for a stock controller on the internet.

About chip transplantation, you can sometimes transplant the small 8-pin chip (the SPI flash ROM) from the broken board to the donor, then recover using the donor board. This of course only works on HDDs with the firmware in a flash ROM, as opposed to on the platter.

Thanks for showing that this actually worked. From experience in the 90's and early 2000, I actually tried this method without success. I did my research to figure out why? People posted that the actual hard drive was calibrated with that board and it would be a slim chance this would work because of it. If you had the same exact revision and lot number, for example, people claimed it could possibly work with much higher success. In your case, was all the boards the same revision etc? I gave up later on trying any of this because of what I learned early on. Thanks for sharing and this might enable me to try this again. However, I have a lot more SSD drives today. ;) I posted before I saw the ending, you actually mentioned transferring the chip. However, that type of solder joints being so small, looks like a nightmare to get right.

2:03 suddenly game of thrones

😱 Scared the hell out of me with that LOUD drill

Excellent video you made. Professional. I am convinced that an important hard drive of mine has a controller problem. It is also a WD IDE older style. I am going to use your knowledge that you displayed in the video and replace the controller board. Thanks so much for making a great video! Best Always!

The 'hynix' branded chip is actually a hard drive buffer chip (RAM chip), and not an I/O controller.

Abraham - thank you for the hard drive repair videos. I have an external hard drive that I banged while it was running and afterward, it would not be recognized and made a quiet double click sound. i removed the cover and did the bad thing of running the drive w/o cover to see what was happening - the arm that passes over the platters (double platters) would run into the middle and tap against the center hub making the little clicking sounds. there were no grooves or scratches on the top of the visible platter so i am wondering if i buy the same drive new or used - is there a chance i could replace the arm and its mechanism and be able to access my files? if so, any advice how to get the read/write arms to fit onto the platters would be appreciated and any other tips you might have.

Thanks for the info and demo! I got a WD 3T Green failed, no clicking sounds or other noise, just refused to be mounted. Seems PCB issue. Can I use a WD 3T Blue's controller board (PCB) to replace it? As you mentioned its platter control info might be different from earlier version, or can NOT be replaceable at all? Thanks!! I got important data on the disk.

Starting to watch this video, already like it. Good detail. Description

Thanks a lot Sir, you've shared your valuable knowledge for us. I will always wait other valuable tutorials

With the logic board #2, did you try to assign a drive letter in the Disk Management?

Thank you..this actually works for a WB my book. It was a WD Green drive. I also recommend connecting a "working" hard drive, with similar model with similiar PCB. Once the PC recognizes that "working" hard drive QUICKLY disconnect then connect the non-working HDD. Caution tho..you should always wear rubber gloves.

Hi great video. Can you tell me where you got the piece of kit that you plug the hard drive into to test it please?

Abraham I have a quick question. My macbook pro shuts down during reboot stage. Please help me figure out what to do or direct me to the right place. I love your videos!

Thank U so much! to providing more beneficial Knowledge about a Hard Drive, Just because I have the same problem in my WD Hard drive which producing a sharp clicking sound. . .

Great video. I found and ordered the exact same WD External Passport for Mac, and I'm eagerly awaiting its arrival so I can test this method. Fingers crossed that it does the trick! I've come across other videos where they mention transferring the BIOS chip from the old board to the donor board, claiming it won't work otherwise. Do you think for the WD external drives it could work just swapping the boards without transferring the BIOS chips? Thank you.

Very helpful instructional video. Thank you!

HI, On another site the technician stated it was vital to change the bios chip from the original board to the replacement board as it contained all the information relative to that specific hard drive.

Great info, thank you so much my friend...i need only see if i can get a few doner drives and hopefully i have that same happy ending as you did here... otherwise, i've learned a very very hard lesson, losing my lifetimes worth of musical composition files... thanks again...fingers crossed...

awesome!! on a drive that said you need to format and wouldn`t detect i didn`t have a spare just disconnected the board cleaned the contacts and replaced the same board the drive works fine thank you

In PCB board you explain about each chip function, and what about 8 pin chip function? Donor PCB seller said that need to replace donor PCB with old 8 pin chip to work hard disk.

that clicking tho gets the beat going

Each hard drive has been programmed with firmware that makes the board recognise to its own disc. So if you change the board with another board it will doesn't work, even though the brand/type/model of the hard drive are the same. Unless you copy the firmware that contains the recognizing code into another board.

Thanks for sharing this video, I was able to fix my HD & recovered my important files, Mabuhay Ka!

Thanks, I have a similar HD on my old P4 with files I want to recover but had the same clicking problem, time to hunt for some old drives.

Do you use a soldering iron to replace those chips? Or do you have a better device? I was a radio repair man and am glad to be retired.

Hi and thanks for the video! I'm trying to put an external hdd inside my pc. The windows 7 sees it but can't see the data. It says i should format it which clearly i don't want to because i don't want to loose the information that's stored on it. What should i do? Thanks! P.S. I have used the external hdd for about 2 years now and from the beginning it was disconnecting at the very light touch of the data cable. Now, the files from it are getting loaded very hard sometimes but sometimes it works well. Since now i have used an laptop but now, having a desktop, i want to solve this somehow. I'm really hoping for an answer from you cause i say you know things. Thanks in advance.

Firstly not a major loss if fails data wise but would you do this first or the releasing needle trick repair?

is it that allmost all disks are hot swapable ? i thought u need turn off pc for connecting hd ?

Great video! Thanks for your time.

Thank you for an informative video!

wow very helpful.thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge.God Bless.

I have a dead WD200 with 10 years of all my professional work on it. Given what you just taught me, I'm going to see if I can order an identical drive off ebay and swap the controller cards. It may be a long shot, but its better than not trying at all. Thanks for the tutorial.

Thanks for the great video...I will give this a try...

wow its awesome sir i try that the ways of replacing circuit board and its work properly ..

How close how close to the original controller board part number were the other controller board part numbers that you tried., including the one that worked? I am about to try this with a WD400BB but I am having trouble finding an exact match to the controller board part number.

You have given me hope. I pray that I can recover my files. I didn't back up and now I've lost a life time of pictures.

I cant find exactly the same model of my Seagate HDD, did you have success with a circuit board from a donor from the same brand but different model? maybe different year, or different storage capacity

thanks for your honesty

Thank You for sharing this data life saving knowledge.....Subscribed....

Great video. Very informative.

I heard that the donor drive must have the same model and firmrware, as well as same site code and same first 3 letters/digits of serial. Is this accurate, or does it not always work like that?

What if the two drives I want to recover from are expensive Toshiba 3TB drives. Do I need to get another 3TB of the same kind with the hope that the circuit board will work? Can't I use a lower capacity? Probably not worth it. :(

Each hard drive has unique "adaptives", stored in one of the board chip. This info tuned by manufacturer and using by controller to get data from magnetic surfaсe. This is the reason why you can't get info by board replacing. You have to be lucky with the new board.

So where do you get extra controllers? also should they be the same compatibility 2Tb with 2Tb, 250gig with 250gig.

Just to add one more piece of info, when the supposed problematic board was attached to the other HDD it worked well, so it wasn't a board problem i think, and the heads when swaped also worked well, what else is missing?

Seagate 2tb barracuda and a Seagate 500mb, 11 click shutdown prob seems common. Is that the heads stuck or not finding the system sector or mount sector to mount? Almost tried the circuit board swap before wayching this vid, guessing it would freak and blow up? (Using good 500mb to unclick 2tb drive)

Apparently some Seagate drives you cannot use donor board unless you transplant the original firmware chip according to forums this true?

Thank you! Great Sir.

I love you man as you solved my problem

What device did you put together that you tested this hard drive with

Hello. Swapping the PCB board, the requirement must be same Capacity, Firmware, Model, Site right?

*Should the 2 drives be of the same size? The same model? Like does the DCM and PCB Sticker need to match? Just trying to understand...*

Seeing as you have so many donor drives to choose from, would it not be sensible to look at the revision and serial numbers on the labels and try the closest match _first_ ?

So if I accidentally used a 19v power adapter on a 12v external hard drive, then it's just the diode I need to replace?

whaa ho!!! you did so talently 👍

Are you a pro in DR? You have repair shop? Just curious.

My seagate external 2tb hardrive fell off my tv, sitting on a table, on to the table. It had faint beeping sounds and computer wouldnt recognize the drive. I took the hard drive apart and found my heads were stuck and before seeing your vids i tried things on my own. I pulled the heads back by hand and then tried starting the hard drive without putting it back together it was completely open. The heads go back and forth making a scratching noise and im scared this could damage the data. Still havnt put it back together. What can i do or how do i recover data bc i cannot lose this data...

That second problem with the disk not showing up might be fixed by deleting and creating a simple volume on Windows disk management, but you'll loose all your data but have a technically new drive

Hello, can you tell me please if the same model disk, swap the boards will work and rescue my data? I don't care if i spend money in the new one all i need is confirmation if works, is 1 tb western digital blue series wd10ezex, thanks

very Nice thank you for shearing information

Abraham can i ask advice. I have a Phillips external 500gb drive with Hitachi 500gb inside. My pc doesnt recognise it no more like yours didnt. Could i send to you for repair as i have lots of pics etc to keep in the drive. I will need a cloned drive to change pcb board yes?

Nice way of explaining things..

what recovery software do u recommend?

fantastic video 👍🏻👍🏻

Do you think the controllers on #1 and #2 were also bad?

what Recovery software do you recommend?

Great info! Thanksss

Thanks! May try that tomorrow, at least it worth a shot.

does the circuit board have to come from the same brand hard drive

I have ASUS X550LN laptop. Yesterday I got mad from video games and I hit the laptop on the right side next to the mouse pad. The Laptop froze and I restarted it but it never turned on again. When I try to turn it on it beeps for a few seconds then it stops ( you can look the video on my channel what I mean.. ). Also I checked in the BIOS and the laptop doesn't detect the HDD. (I've been to a service centre and they told me that the PCB might be damaged and if I can find the same one and replace it they might be able to save my data. ) What do you propose me to do? What can be wrong with the HDD and which solution I should use to fix it and get my data back which was really important to me! Help please!! Thank you! Abraham Levit

What can you do when you get a "no media" error on a HDD? Can data be recovered? I have tried DiskPart and that gives me the No Media error.

Does the replacement PC board have to come from a formatted hard drive?

Which device are you hooking the drive to, looks like it changes the drive from an IDE to a USB cable...that connects to the computer...

what apps do you use in attempt to read the files from the failed drive? how can I contact you? I spilled coffee on my laptop - need to recover files. Thanks!

3rd times a charm! i gotta try that.. thx..

My HDD is damage, when I connect my computer then I can see my HDD Samsung 320GB from boot menu But can’t open that HDD, when I go Disk Management then I see my HDD is dynamic disk, when I open it then it want to convert basic disk, if I convert it Basic Disk then I can get my data after convert? Please help me. Thanks...

I saw another video in which to exchange the equal boards it is necessary to use the donor hard disk first in the same PC after change to the new or damage hard disk and shutdown this PC, make hard disk changes and turn on the PC again whit the hard disk ready connected this help system to recognize the hard disk board when you start the disk with the change made.

What if you only have a computer and one of those external hard drives and you don't have the testing part? What can you do to test your external hard drive by connecting it to your computer?

i took out the tvs diod which were burnt from two hard drives and they worked, what do you think ? by the way you are proffessional sir and i give you lot of respect, thx

It has to be the same brand and model drive?

Abraham: Great video. My question is, do the two hard drives have to be of the exact same capacity? 40 GB & 40 GB or can one be a 60 GB drive?

I have a Seagate Central...the HD is good....how can I recover data to my mac? TY

if the drive grives a DUN DUN thingy but doesnt appear in windows it could be that it has a allready occupied drive letter assigned to it (like C:) allways look in disk management

heads most definitely DO get stuck on platters on desktops, the term stiction is older than laptops are.

Useful video!

That sensual touch at 16:46

Need help !! It has been 7 years since I have been using my 500 Gb hard drive and now my HDD is too to slow to boot and even while opening any application or doing any work. Copy and paste goes in kbs. I formatted the PC couple of times but while formatting the HDD it took almost 18 to 24 hours to format and installation new Windows 7, but the problem persist. I even tried for taking backup through LAN but the reading and writing speed is too slow (in kbs). Please HELP asap.

Why didn't you clean the board contact surfaces before replacing the board to see if it was just a bad contact?

Hello, thx. do you think that it is possible to recover data with software even if the reading/writing needle is lock?

The firmware chip (SOIC8) should of been swapped from the old to the new board. Then it will work 100% if the original board is faulty. Also you pointed to the wrong chips.. the firmware chip is the Small Outline Integrated Circuit (SOIC) 8pin

I have an issue where my WD My Book Essential has burnt out as well. It is a 3TB Green Drive from 2013. There was a constant blinking light every .5 second. It would boot up when connected then would go into blinking mode, not able to mount or readable by both my macbook pro and desktop mac. The drive actually does mount but at a snails pace and only reads the drive name. Doesn't allow files to show in directory. I checked and it seems that the PCB board is burnt at the point of where it connects directly to the hard drive. The USB board is intact, no damage. I have tried two donor boards of the same code, and now the drive does not click but is not recognized or mounts. The light is solid for about 5 minutes then slow constant blink every 2 seconds like it is in sleep mode. I am wondering if it can't read the encrypted data with the new pcb board or if I should continue to try and swap pcb boards. Just a note...I am using the new pcb board with the old USB board. Any Suggestions? Thanks Lee

Hi. My needle/head goes back and forth and it looks like the disc doesn't spin at full speed. I can't read the harddrive on my PC. Any ideas? Regards Andrew.

The most impressive thing in this video is the widescreen CRT

Hi Abraham. First of all let me thank you for your great video's on this subject. Still got a question/problem though. I have a WD Elements 1TB, that made the magic clicking sound and stopt working. Windows still "sees" WD, but data won't show up :-( No when i turn on the drive, it will give a few clicks, motor starts spinning for a few seconds and then stops all together. No sounds at all! Please can you give some advice! Much appreciated. Paul