Please Help me assess whether the drive is a dead PCB or a drive failure

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

This HDD was taken from an imac and from what I understand they get pretty hot.

The old story, a lot of good data on it, and I failed to back it up recently.

I would like to revive it if I can.

Please see the attached images, it looks like there is some scoring but I have no idea, maybe it’s normal?

Would you suggest replacing the PCB.

And IF SO, where would I find one?

The drive is a WD3200AAJS

Thanks!

2012-12-09 23.28.52.jpg
2012-12-09 23.28.52.jpg816×460 202 KB
2012-12-09 23.30.01.jpg
2012-12-09 23.30.01.jpg816×460 201 KB

2

Replacing the PCB is normally the way to go in this situations

however, it’s not certain if all the data will be retrieved

try going to this page donordrives.com

3

Does it look like to you guys that it is the PCB that is the problem? Is it normal for a PCB to have that kind of condition?

4

By the looks of that sponge, the drive hit some insane temperatures (55/60+?). Yet i don’t see anthing burnt-out in that image…

How does the drive manifest now? Does it power on? Any clicking sounds?

Is it recognized by the bios? If you only connect the PCB to the computer, does it show up as a “WD <product_codename>”?