Hard Drive PCB Board Swap Issues

[dafoe]

I have a Maxtor 200GB IDE hard drive. Being the high quality piece of equipment that most Maxtor drives are, two of the molex power pins came detached when I unplugged the drive.

There is 10-15GB of data on that drive that I need desperately. So I bought the exact same drive (6L200PO) on Ebay, used Buy It Now and paid for Priority shipping.

I swapped the damaged PCB board with the new one after I verified that it worked. I have tried the drive, with the replacement PCB in every configuration possible internally and externally with 3 different PCs. Nothing works.

The drive reads for about 2 seconds when it is powered on. After that, the only sound is the platter spinning. The drive does not show up in disk management or even my Bios.

I really don't know anything about hard drives. Is there maybe the wrong firmware on the PCB board? Is there anyway to get this drive working again?

The data on that drive represents about 200 hours of tedious work. And like I said, I need it yesterday. I don't have 200 hours to redo the work.

I would be extremely grateful if anybody has any ideas on how to get this drive running again. Thanks

[jan5678]

Maybe you can repair the old pcb.
If only the power connector is loose it may be possible to solder it back on.

I don't think that you can swap those pcb's like this, because every drive has a unique number.

[Moontrash]

your gonna have to learn how to solder pretty quick it sounds like...it's not hard to do...a picture maybe of the broken molex might help also for guidance

[aedipuss]

i'd try getting a sata to ide power adapter, cut off the sata end and soldier the 4 wires to whatever remains of the connector. you may have to cut away the plastic to get to it. or on the top of the board there should be via passthroughs you could use if you are really good at soldering. just don't overheat them and burn the board.

[jman98]

Well, you could certainly PAY a data recovery company to fix your drive as they will likely have the expertise necessary to do so, but if you are really and truly asking "I need a way to do this myself that's incredibly simple and incredibly cheap", then no, we probably don't have a solution for you. If you are not experienced with what has been suggested and really HAVE to get the data, you might consider whether you can afford to botch this if you do it yourself and fail.

[dafoe]

Thanks guys. I will try the soldering thing. What have I got to lose?

I wish I had done my research before wasting money on another drive.

[aedipuss]

it may be the drive you received is defective. did you test it before removing the board? it should have worked with the guts of the other drive, as there is nothing in there but mechanical parts unless it was a different rev. version.

[lingyi]

A quick search on Ebay for 6L200PO shows that this is the drive model. There are listings for PCB boards with different revisions. As mentioned, the firmware must be EXACTLY the same, not just the drive model. I've swapped out PCBs on hard drives and they work if they're the exact same firmware verision.

The good news is that from the pics I see on Ebay, the solder points for the molex connector are exposed. Strip the insulation from the female end of the connector and solder it directly to the the board (be sure to take the board off the drive first).

You mention that the pins came out. Have you tried reinserting them? The pins are crimped at the end and there might still be enough of a stub to make contact. You may have to rotate the pin to make contact where it broke off.