I have 4 failed WD hard drives sitting on my desk from 2 weeks to a couple of months old. Three are WD Caviar Blue and one is a Caviar Black. On each of the drives, the solder on the board on the back is missing. It looks like somethig has eaten it off. I have other older computers with hard drives that are several years ols and we never had a problem. What could cause this.
Hi there, can you post a pic of the board? o.o
Same here. I had this 1TB Caviar Green Hard Drive for a little over a month and I am getting HDD failure through Windows.
Now as a precaution, I am pulling all WD Drives except for one. I am going to look for another high capacity storage drive in case the WD My Book Live decides to fail.
The oxidisation is the fallout from materials changes mandated by RoHS.
See this thread:
http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/WD-HDD-PCB-Oxidization-corrosion-discolorations-you-name-it/m-p/24697
The problem also affects Seagate’s drives.
You should be able to clean the preamp pads by gently scrubbing them with a soft white pencil eraser. I haven’t tried it with hard drives, but I’ve used Brasso metal polish to clean the tarnish from other electronic devices, eg black-spotted battery contacts.
