All I can say is that any price is more reasonable than professional data recovery. In any case, I would expect that your photos would be worth more to you than $90.
Priceless.Â
Thank you for all your time and effort. and all the great information that even a semi-geek can understand (well maybe not the first time)
Thank you!
Hey fzabkar,
I finally managed to buy the PCB from ebay and have it shipped to India. Should I attempt swapping the PCBs or solder the firmware chip from the old PCB onto the new one and then try powering on the hard drive? Can anything go wrong if I just attempt to screw on the new PCB and start up the hard drive?
Looking forward to your reply.
It is OK to swap PCBs on WD and Seagate drives. If the âadaptiveâ data are not within tolerance, then the drive will click and wonât be detected. Donât do this with Hitachi drives, though. The MCU can overwrite the EEPROM data, rendering both patient and donor inoperable.
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Great, so hereâs my plan of action. Iâll attach the new PCB onto the drive and keep my fingers crossed. If it doesnât appear to work, then Iâll proceed to swap the U12 firmware chip as well. Wish me luck man! And regardless of the turnout, thanks a dozen for your help 
Okay, so I tried with the new PCB, the hard drive spins up and gets detected, but it says SATA Port Device Error and shows up at 0GB with no name. Tell me this is a firmware issue that will get solved if I swap the U12 chip!
I believe your drive is powering up in safe mode. I donât know enough to confirm that this is due to a U12 mismatch, but you wonât know unless you try it. Just be careful, as damaging the serial flash memory will escalate the cost of data recovery.
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Hmm. Yesterday when I attached the new PCB, like I said, it showed SATA Port Device Error in POST. I shut the PC down and removed the hard drive. You think I should boot into Windows just to see if the drive detects fine, or it wonât really make a difference?
If a drive reports 0 LBAs to the BIOS, then Windows wonât see it any differently.
Hey,
Replacing the U12 EEPROM chip on the new PCB with the one on the original PCB did the trick! My hard drive is back in action and I am currently backing up all my precious data as I write this. Thanks a tonne for the help Fzabkar
Hey remember me? Geekie Mama? Well Christmas is finally over and Iâm all set to send my board off to have a firmware transfer⊠However Iâm not fluent in either Geek or Canadian and when you mix the two - well -
On the form I send with the board they ask for the DCM and MDL along with the serial number.  I think I know the serial number and is the MDL model number? But what is a DCM? Even Geek son didnât know.Â
DCM = Drive Configuration Matrix
MDL = Model number
Both numbers are on the label.
