Electronics > Beginners
How often do discrete smd parts fail on hard drives ?
lordvader88:
I have non-working 3TB HDD, and I never probed anything digital like that before. I think it has a big jtag buss/pads. So far I found which chip is the motor controller, and ram, on the net, but I know this is all mission impossible. I should buy a replacement PCB
It has some corrorded pads, that I've read people re-tinned and got results, so I'll do that.
How often does a discrete part like resistor, cap, or inductor fail ? VS a chip goes bad ?
There's only 5 main chips, 2-3 voltage/current controller types, and I don't see any smd transistors, just R,C,L and a few diodes.
james_s:
I think it would be hard to say, in at least 99% of hard drive failures the drive is simply disposed of with no attempt made to perform a component level repair. I once repaired a hard drive that had failed because someone spilled a drink on the computer while it was on and one of the SO8 mosfets driving the spindle motor cratered. That's the only time I've done anything like that though.
Gyro:
Have you tried removing the PCB and checking the motor and head/actuator connections? On many drives these are pressure just contacts onto pads that can tarnish.
Buriedcode:
Not often.
Generally hard drives die slowly as the number of bad sectors can no longer be reallocated. The pad corrosion thing would most likely cause a drive to be unusable by the host system, as it would hinder the connection between controller and heads. I did the "clean/polish the pads" thing when my last hard drive bought the farm and it made no difference - doesn't mean to say it won't with yours, just that it must have been working with this corrosion before it went.
The most common board failure I've seen in my very limited experience is the TVS diode on the power inputs. But I would say any "power" related devices, regulators or motor drive switches, the stuff that heats up would be the most likely failure.
tooki:
FYI, you cannot swap the PCB anyway. It stores a bunch of drive-specific stuff (like the map of remapped sectors) in EEPROM.
Buy a new drive and use that one as a doorstop.
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