Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

[Scenic]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

remember the "Click of death" for old Iomega Zip units, IBM "Deathstars" or Maxtors manifactured up to 2007?)

you forgot the Fujitsu MPG-series of HDDs..
the MPG series is the reason why Fujitsu went out of the HDD business (for desktop 3,5" drives.. AFAIR they still produce 2,5" notebook HDDs for OEMs)

oh and BTW.. i still own one of those IBM Deathstar (or Desastar) HDDs...

20GB DTLA-305020

was running in a server 24/7. SMART reports a power on count of almost 4 years (HDD is dated Feb. 2001). still working fine, but horribly loud (spindle motor).
but all 40GB drives i got from the same guy were dead.. as soon as you tried to write something.. "click click.. scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch"..)
for some weird reason all 40GB ones could be formatted (full format, not quick format) without any problem.. but that doesn't help anyways if you can't read or write something on/from them

edit: i wrote 3 years instead of 4

[momaka]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

oh and BTW.. i still own one of those IBM Deathstar (or Desastar) HDDs...

20GB DTLA-305020

was running in a server 24/7. SMART reports a power on count of almost 4 years (HDD is dated Feb. 2001). still working fine, but horribly loud (spindle motor).

Same here, though mine is 20GB DTLA-307020. Still running strong, although from time to time it goes "click-beep" (same noise as when it shuts down), and after that it resumes back to normal. If I hear it do that, though, I shut it down immediately, because otherwise I get more of these beeps (I read a website long ago that said that those beeps indicated buffer corruption).

@ Scenic: At what temperature is yours running? I get 43C on the hotter days in the summer and 40C in the winter. However, I'm pretty sure those temperatures and the random clicks are due to the crappy Powmax I had in there before (Fuhjyyu TNR on +12v, and bulged Jun Fu on +5v ). Now I have a Tt TR2 430W, but I haven't tried that HD due to the noise it makes (like you said, really loud spindle motor).

[Roadkill203]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

Thanks for all of the input. I was hoping that this drive would be usable after I replace the PCB, but from what it sounds like, that's not the case. I have no data on the drive to capture, so I ended up taking the drive apart, and I'm gonna list the PCB on Ebay, as-is, untested.

On a side note, I attached one of the platters to my rear view mirror with some fishing line. I'll take it down in a couple of days, I just want to get a few puzzled looks from somebody, anybody! Oh, and I'm gonna try to attach power and ground to the motor to make the platters spin.

Work is slow.

[momaka]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

Make yourself one of these if you don't have a grinder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4KCu8EAHsY

[zandrax]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

@ Scenic: Sorry, I barely heard of Fujitsu MPG/MPF fiasco: Fujitsu was a rare hdd brand in italian consumer products [Fujitsu-Siemens is stronger on workstations and servers, not desktops], better remembered for Scsi units.

Make yourself one of these if you don't have a grinder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4KCu8EAHsY

Well, I have an infamous Seagate ST3660A broken and I may turn it into a grinder or an hi-tech speaker
Just kidding ...

Zandrax

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

I may turn it into a grinder or an hi-tech speaker
Just kidding ...

Zandrax

I bet a dead drive that still spins would make an interesting high flow squirrel cage fan. - Just glue some fins to the disk and fabricate a shroud.
~ 7200 RPM BABY!

.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

20GB DTLA-305020

was running in a server 24/7. SMART reports a power on count of almost 4 years (HDD is dated Feb. 2001). still working fine, but horribly loud (spindle motor).

Is it one of the Hungary-made ones?

All the ones I came across that are made in Hungary, have a loud spindle motor and is slow to spin up. But, the ones I had were early 1999.

Also what worried me was that they seem to have an issue with the "Spin up retries" (or similar) SMART attribute.

Non of those problems with my October 22, 1999 Phllippines-made Deskstar 12 GB.
It spins up faster and is quieter. Also, a fast HDD for it's time!

[Scenic]

Re: Is it difficult to repair Western Digital hard drives?

nope.. made in thailand. (the 20GB one)