Hard Drive Revival – Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I embarked upon Hard Drive Revival – Part 1 when I took receipt of an apparent dead drive and decided to replace its circuit board.

Last week, the replacement board arrived whilst I was on my extended weekend in Melbourne. I’ve only just been able to collect it today from the mail room at work to see if I will have any joy.

Replacement Circuit Board

As you can see, this is the bare circuit board which came with the required screwdriver to unfasten the existing board from the drive (saving me a trip to Bunnings).

Unfastened Circuit Board

Bare Hard Drive

Unscrewing the board from the drive is a fairly straightforward process. After removing the screws, the board simply lifts off without resistance.

Hard drive with replacement board

All you then have to do is reattach the board with the original screws making sure not to scratch the board or have the screws come into contact with any of the circuits. Also, don’t tighten the screws immediately but instead gently screw them in one by one to make sure the board is flush with the drive.

All that’s left to do is reattach to the computer and power it up!

So, did it work? Yes, it did!

I’ve since backed up the 100GB of data on the drive to my Windows Home Server (in a redundantly stored folder).

So next time you have a hard drive fail on you, consider replacing its board. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to get the data off the drive and may save you a considerable amount instead of engaging a data recovery service. On the flip side, if it doesn’t work, you haven’t spent a huge amount of money in the process.