Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB PCB swap question

Internal Drives WD Green
1

I bought the drive from Amazon with part number WD20EARS-00MVWB0 in Nov, 2011. But today, the drive is dead.  I put this drive in external enclosure and connected to PC by e-sata. I also tested it by connect it internally. Still no good. I believe there was some thunder storm that might kills the PCB circuit board. If I swap the pcb out with the new one with the same model, can I retrieve all the data? I am kind of worry. Because I read this in this following link,

http://www.salvagedata.com/hard-drive/western-digital-data-recovery/wd20ears/

Saying “If this is the case many inexperienced technicians will try to swap PCB from another Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS drive of the same model but chances of successful hard drive recovery are close to zero, especially on newer Western Digital hard drives. The problem is that logic board and service area microcode on modern Western Digital hard drives are adapted to the head disk assembly are manufactured with.”.

If I get the same batch of hard drive, can I still do the pcb swap thing?

Thank you!

2

In theory it should, but Salvage are pros even listed on WD’s site as a recovery partner, so if they say that chances are close to zero then it should be paid attention…

Getting the same a drive from the exact same batch is something that is going to be hard, but you can find almost anything on eBay…

3

If the damage is restricted to the protection diodes (TVS), then there is a simple, no-cost DIY fix. Could we see a photo or scan of the component side of the PCB?