Fujitsu Hard Drive Failed - Can we save data with Board Firmware swap

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[@deathtrap1976]

Now, get back the firmware chip resolded again and transfer the ZA component. If everything's lost, try the all-in.

[@sasakostic1982]

Yes ;)

[@milandjukic88]

I wrote the same comment without seeing this one :)

[@bitrip]

my thoughts too

[@Blu3ManiC]

It was an expedited repair so it’s better to deem it no fix at this point and charge the customer the no fix rate because otherwise it takes more time from the other repairs that were already waiting before this. Real data recovery costs thousands of dollars so at this point the customer has already received what they paid for and it’s not worth wasting countless more troubleshooting on it.

[@LoveMeBack]

+1

[@Gamersoft1124Pro]

The Coil wining sound indicates, that the read and write heads are stuck on the platters. I know it because that same thing happened to my hard drive I opened it up and turned the platters carefully counterclockwise and move the heads to the parking position screwed the cover back and the hard drive was detected I was able to back up all the data to a new hard drive because it is a temporary fix if you open a hard drive in a dusty room it will detect (or maybe not) but do not trust that hard drive again back up the data copy it to another new hard drive and throw the old one away.

[@TerryLawrence001]

I still flash back to when I thought micro circuitry would kill my DIY electronics hobby! I thought I was stuck using breakout boards and clunky modules for everything. KZbin Channels like this made working board level again a reality! thanks for what you do! I love my micro soldering setup!

[@MiGujack3]

It became a lot more expensive and difficult though.

[@Crysalis02010]

What's your setup?

[@Dandan-tg6tj]

@@MiGujack3 🙂 and on top of all that, the clients are willing to pay less and less.

[@ThisIS_Insane]

Alex, don't feel wrong - when you love what you do, you can sail along on 'autopilot'! That's partly why you prepped the pads on the original board! It's hilarious and I've done it a gazillion to the Nth power times! (Following or performing an unnecessary procedure, especially when totally inapplicable to the steps you are following!) I give myself 5 minutes to laugh at myself about it, then move on. Love the smile on your face when you caught on to what you just did! Keep the Faith, My Good Man! 😁😁😁👍👍

[@SolderBrothers]

We Appreciate every second you produce for us, fix or no fix. Keep on smiling!

[@anonhollmuller4032]

i am happy too ! fix or no fix ! greez

[@javithm9463]

300k northridgefix 🎉

[@medoantaka9219]

You are making an amazing job.. Try to make it easy and simple... I learned very lot from you... Helped me to recognise and diagnose and fix many things... Wish u all luck... Greetings from Egypt... بجد انت شخص محترم جداا وتمنياتي بدوام النجاح و تحياتي لشخصك الكريم

[@milandjukic88]

Why not you change that ZA chip on original board? Greetings for 300K!! Keep a good work Alex! You run one of the best and relaxing channels on youtube!

[@cahitcaliskan8224]

by watching a few of your vids, i was able to fix my vdsl modem. it's 12v rails , security diode , two 16v electrolytic capacitors and a small 140k ohms resistor were burnt because of inverted (-12v dc) input by me. thanks to you sir. greetings from türkiye.😃

[@bkaczy]

The first move with preparing the board for resolderling marvell chip was right so - lets swap back chip and ZA component! and bless 🙂

[@markaz2kk]

Also try to oil the bearings in the shaft for 10/20 seconds upside down without it on. Then turn it around to the mb down on the table. I’ve fixed many drives that have little to no lubricant. They sit around and the bearings lock the pwm function of the motor due to lack of manufacture to die in a short amount of time.

[@johncunningham5435]

New subscriber: most impressed with your channel, ran my own repair business for 35 years, now I' am semi-retired and still do some repairs. I have ordered the 20V charger charging 8 port station, it will greatly improve charging and troubleshooting.

[@VictorNascimentoo]

I love how you still get surprised every pin is soldered properly. So good and so humble.

[@cyberjism]

...and this is why you make backups of your backups. doesn't hurt to have an extra drive or two of duplicated images that you have to fall back on. much cheaper and untold times faster than going through multiple repair attempts. Alex knew when to pull the plug and the customer can send it in for data recovery if that's what they want to do. After the total cost for this one drive, the backups they never made would have been priceless...literally.

[@bblod4896]

You went the extra mile, sorry it didn't work out. Have a peaceful Sunday.

[@r4v3n23]

hanks a lot for spending double the time on your amazing work to show us how to do it the right professional way, very much appreciated! I love each and every video of yours and i learn something new every time, and i think your great teacher, very entertaining and a magician when it comes to any electronic device possible! But the thing i like the most about you, your and honest and respectable person because you always show the whole process even a no fix or a fail on your side (which is fairely rar as i can tell from hours of your video) Thanks for all your hard work respect and greetings from germany

[@ratomirstevic6135]

I clicked Like Button. I found this channel before two days, now I am only watching this guy. Better then EEVblog. In fact the best KZbin channel ever.

[@MaxGameZz]

Thank you Alex for showing us that even you do your best you can't fix the. hdd sometimes...knowing that the hard method in labs costs thosands of dollars.

[@alataweel8954]

I was wondering the same thing when I saw you prepping the customers original board!

[@scality4309]

Thanks for the follow up.

[@PvtTex96]

Kinda wished he didn’t give up on this drive.

[@vassofixcotedivoiresarl7829]

Thank you for your excellent work. God bless you

[@paulrichmond1508]

the fujitsu are so hard to do . well done very educational

[@ArreglandoCosas]

Congrats on 300k subscribers Alex! I never miss your videos and I learn a lot. Thanks for sharing your knowledge

[@JonJonChannel]

5th - 300,000k subscribers!!!

[@re-fix9678]

Thank for video

[@jeffcook3747]

I'm guessing that this was not an identical board ? A friend of my boss' wife when I worked in a computer shop had her masters thesis on a drive that failed. I looked for the identical board/drive and swapped the boards and prayed. it worked !

[@michasadowski7526]

You are a great motivation to me, you show how profesional someone can be and i am taking your path in life

[@garytatum]

I wouldn't worry about prepping the wrong board as for me I'm just going to take it as a lesson in micro soldering and board prep thanks for the education

[@ACOnetwork]

I would try to put back the chip to original board amd replace broken chip and try that. Anyway great job :D

[@Muslim_011]

There is a technique that I saw from youtube a few years ago. They unscrew the hard drive just a bit when it is pluged in not too much (the mechanical side), according to that video it help the head to get its place back. I think it worth a try

[@Muslim_011]

@@electrolatif yeah, that's the big problem he have

[@Chewligan1]

We like to watch you prepping the board even when you don't need to do it !!!!

[@TerryLawrence001]

Perhaps you re-tinned the old board subconsciously knowing that there is one more thing to try! Put the firmware chip back on and swap the ZA chip?

[@hotlava2222]

put the old chip back and replace the za chip lol ;-P Love the videos, Inspiring the world!

[@carlosgarciaoropeza5480]

good effort trying to please your subscribers...we don't want pyrrhic victories...learned a lot, thank you very much sir.

[@devonwilson5776]

Greetings. It is always a pleasure watching you doing the great work you do. You make things look so easy and simple that one would think that there is absolutely nothing to it. However, that is not true, troubleshooting electronics circuitry is time consuming, tedious, and profoundly painstaking. It takes patience, zeal, dedication, and a strong desire to see things through. It also takes and or rather calls for continuous education of oneself and investment into the acquisition of equipment required to do the job. You Sir are providing the foundation upon which countless individuals are being trained for free. In fact, the free training that you are providing is even doing more for your viewers than some of the paid courses that they have done. God's richest blessings always to you and your family. May your days be long to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Thanks immensely for your splendid work.

[@masterfixgr]

Deep inside you know that you will put back the firmware and replace the burnt component. That's why unconsciously prepared the pads!

[@rfr653]

Good job mate 👍

[@Induratize2]

"Not going to say solid for every pin." the gasps could be heard around the world

Thank you so very much for sharing your work and expertise with us.

[@hasanmahmood30]

Thank you bro for your time and valuable information. Love from Bangladesh

[@Reluar]

Fix or no fix I enjoy anyway watching Alex videos. Thanks for sharing 👍 body.

[@LaurentiusTriarius]

Me watching you prep the old board pads; "eeehhaaaaaaaaargghhhh" "throwing stuff at my screen" then "ahhhhhhhhhhh" for about 30 sec. There's more suspense and action here than any Netflix series.

[@melstead3981]

Because you are so smart all the time right!

[@Anthony_The_Chicken_Licker]

5:33 thank you 😊

[@supergoofy123]

Thanks man. Let's say that you prep'ed the pads on the old board for educational purposes. :D

[@stefanlechner]

Great to see the second part, maybe you should try another donorboard, but of course it won't worth it then. Nice video, thank you. Greets

[@SuperLinuxAudioGuru]

When I noticed you prepping the original board, I thought you were just being organised just in case the Ebay donor board was faulty ( like you mentioned was possible ) and were going to fallback to plan B :)

[@wombattos]

I thought it was just me... But then he noticed it himself. I thought I was being dumb hehehe

[@pickelsvonbrine]

Possible when the board failed the drive was on and heads were on the platter. Due to the way the drive failed the heads did not retract, drive spun down and heads got stuck. That could explain the hissing/coil whine/buzzing I have seen drives that this has happened and you can save it with a new board and head exchange. after recovering the heads off the plattersuccessfully. However, I have also seen this happen and rip the heads right off the armature.

[@Gamersoft1124Pro]

Pickels von Brine: exactly 👍🏻 I have done it to a lot of hard drives from my friends and relatives with that head stuck problem and I was able to recover the data from it to a new hard drive successfully

[@pickelsvonbrine]

@@Gamersoft1124Pro I hope you did it in at least a makeshift clean room. I have seen drives destroy themselves with a tiny bit of dust left behind.

[@Gamersoft1124Pro]

@@pickelsvonbrine sadly no, I had no option for a clean room I ve done it in my own room but believe me I was able to recover data from 4 hard drives successfully the hard drive must be dust free of course, but a hard drive is not dying instantly but slowly if it was opened in a dusty environment, but you have enough time to back up the data before it completely fails. but if you dont have luck or even touch the platter with your bare hands by mistake than it is all over and the drive will immediately click.

[@kkeestar]

Amazing quality with that telescope

[@gadget_hack]

Heads are stuck. Check to see if the top of the drive is dented. If you have a large clear bag to open it without getting dust inside. You can very carefully move the arm. Sometimes times if it's dented, removing the lid frees the arm.

[@adityaharekrishna]

@NorthRidgeFix

[@ceemills]

Great skill there..very nice

[@ntag411]

I'm subscribed and always always leave a like. Generally people should not watch others work because it's distracting and disrespectful. Mistakes are to be expected especially when conversing.

[@eftekerahmed7299]

Ohh..was waiting for a long time.. it's been 3 day's no video uploaded...

[@275drago]

Great soldering of that chip. Make a size comparison just so that people dont think its easy peasy. :)

[@pubgtamil1289]

Hi big fan from Tamil Nadu..🥰🥰

[@brahmanandadas729]

We'll try Alex

[@kaydog2008]

The drive motor died. R.I.P. It has to go to data recovery.

[@petr56321313]

Heads can be shuck on the surface.... I repaired this few times by current pulse into the deflection coil n the right direction - park them. But it can cause more damage.

[@shadynit]

Thats good to learn

[@nouiabdou5660]

well done so far , i wish that u changed the ZA chip from donar board to see if works maybe the donor board have a problems

[@Bboyduck]

if you trust the donor board = what you did is the safe way but online people will tell anything to sell their garbage, so you should go the other way

[@nikeshgupta8362]

I was like why is he prepping the OG board :).

[@desimedia6521]

I have tried samething with a wd 4tb hdd. It contains family photos but didn't worked. The board was very expensive almost price of a new hdd.

[@galaxyexplorer5105]

Good job bro👍

[@chamalathamchama2074]

thanks brother

[@gesotech8762]

Hi Alex I didn't see you check the fuse on the donor board. Perhaps you did it before the video?

[@gamer_5042]

Me personally i would try transfering za chip and firmaware back to original board . Maybe replacement board is broken while the original has a problem only with that za chip.

[@aka_rook]

Hey Alex. Loving your work.

[@aqeelkhan353]

misery loves company.... i also work with electronics with the same thoughts and calculations as he does...but i often shocked when he try to repair devices and got success almost everytime...however i also repairs my appliences but often result failure as if he got just now... i am same time feeling sorry and happy too...because..i am not the only one in this world who fails in repair...there are lots of others too... i am sorry but it happens... :-)

[@shadabmozaffar2996]

If its alll about data, try to find same harddrive and swap PCB. Don't know about these days, but we did it in 2005-06 and recovered many HDD with dead motherboard.

[@bornagain2641]

thank youbAlex. always

[@Eric-EMP]

Sounds Like Big Boss Was playing a game in the Background. I love your work so much and ive learnt alot from you in my repair career. ill keep on sharing and commenting

[@melstead3981]

BIG Boss is away for a month! if you have watched his video's of late, you would know that!

[@ronlevin2339]

the regular problem with eBay stuff, a lot of fake or not working devices (stated as working).

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

It was the right business choice, but I'm still sad we didn't get to see if that ZA component was the issue (a diode I assume?)

[@mikeywibu9931]

me too, im confuse why you prep the original board

[@Marsupilami74]

What is the diameter of your "got air header" that you heat the components? Just curious 🙂

[@RogerTannous]

Did you forget to also replace the ZA chip ? I didn't see you changing it. If it's faulty then it's not going to work, even if we change the firmware chip.

[@rama3njoy]

i just wonder, will solder bloop at the center will spread and make invisible bridge?

[@v12alpine]

Firmware chip and drive mechanism probably blown when the buck regulator shorted 5V into the 3.3V or 1.8V line. Probably needs the platters moved to an identical drive, $$$$ fix.

[@instahawk8422]

You can only give so much time to one thing sometimes you have to call it quits trying to fix a broken device it takes away the time fixing other things doing a follow up for this same device is a waste of resources and time but at least you tried

[@petejackson7976]

transfer the eeprom ic from old to new as well does work for some hard drive or head on the plata !

[@kwame690]

you could put a thick carpet on floor in your work room to protect tweezers tip under fall

[@killer_x_treme]

seized fluid bearing makes a coil whining sound and no spin. Drive platters need to be disassembled. lot more specialized work

[@babayaga5225]

Maybe the motor is gone. Thus the overcurrent and the blown component. PS. Do not move the mechanical drive while its operating :P

[@BeeDotEee]

I can see you in a GTA minigame (EDIT - question what's your headset and I love your end credit music)

[@bigkevsone4096]

Love the content

[@byxmix]

It need flash chip from original board too.

[@jack53104]

5:37 LoL I would try the new board at least for shorts, to be on the safe side, not killing the fw chip.

[@chris_hertford]

Did you try just swap the whole board first? I have done this for recovery on a Seagate drive was fine no firmware issue

[@prue420]

I run a computer repair shop and have a box of old drives I have thousands, let me know the model number of the drive and I can check on Monday.

[@SC-xf6xi]

The Original Chip had one large center pad the board you placed it on had 4 separate pads? dont know if its relavant.

[@shoumikahmed6373]

Now replace th ZA component and see what happens..

[@jackalninezeronine]

Are there any components you will not check with a multimeter while still on the board, (not under power)? I have read about dangers of checking transistors, for example. I have been watching many of your videos and have learned a lot, but I have no knowledge about how these devices function. I want to learn without breaking things while I do it, or going full Hiroshima.

[@bornagain2641]

flux flux flux. yes the best option w new board

[@emonhasan4032]

I have a question. In 1:45 How did you knew that this has the bios . And not the other 8pin chips ?

[@DARKNESS19906]

300k subscriber 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@MelsRNRETRO]

Can you fix an old Toshiba laptop screen? The ribbon cable broke I think. No cracks with the screen itself.

[@jumboegg5845]

People think its easy because they dont realise how small these components are. Next time you are replacing a capacitor or mosfet, I think it would be interesting to place a grain of uncooked rice next to it for comparison.

[@georgeindestructible]

"...but this is the safe route..." meanwhile me reminding myself how i failed to solder that darn mb flex connector of that A42 5G last week for just 1 darn pin that didn't want to stick and while trying to solder it back i accidentally placed the tip of the iron 1 sec longer than i should've and melted the plastic of that pin messing it up and it all went downhill after that, 8 connectors went to the trash can, shame really cause i almost got them all with the first try except that 1 pin... but i got a lot of experience from that and these didn't cost much so no worries, i'll figure it out how to do such large connectors some point i guess, especially when i can get my hands on decent equipment cause it's kinda of a miracle that i've came this close with what we have at the store i work.

[@advfrance]

Hello George ! Was it a FPC connector ? I did one for the first time on a A40 few days ago, on the motherboard, it's a known issue (no screen/no charge). It was not that difficult. I used a cheap hot air station @ 400°C, good flux, Best 60/40 tin and also a cheap microscope. If I understood well you were almost able to do it. I can only encourage you again, the 9th will be the good one ! All the best, good luck and bye !

[@Anibal_avila74]

2:40 that appens to me ..buy a board ...i suplly all data drom the board i need...and they send me a diferent board ...amazing how the sellers cheat in this situation