Can the circuitboard of a hard drive be swapped between identical drives?

Question

I have an IBM SCSI 9.1 GB hard drive (DDYS-T09170 P/N 07N3220), and it throws up a "Start Unit Request Failed" error message on startup. The drive spins up normally. I contacted a data recovery service and was advised that it was most likely a firmware issue. So my idea is to get a new, identical drive and transfer the new circuit board over to the old drive and hope that it will become accessible again and I can get my data off the drive without spending hundreds of dollars on a data recovery service. Anybody ever tried this? Thoughts?

Answer 1

yes, however make sure it is the exact model and capacity of your old drive!

Answer 2

It is actually what data recovery specialists do. However you couldn't do it yourself. The hard drive has many failsafes and protective things about it. Its not the same as your simple solder deal or switching of motherboards etc... messing with hds is usually done in a sterile environment.



Your best bet, is to actually get another hard drive, install your preffered operating system on it. Then plug that IBM drive in, as a slave drive, and see if you can pull the files off it, as opposed to trying to boot to it.



Switching board of an HD yourself, would be considered rocket science if you do not have knowledge in that area.



The hard drive is a critical component and even I myself with some years of IT college under my belt, would not attempt such a thing.



Usually you can get another drive, and boot to the OS, and then grab your files off that drive. Its your best bet.



Data recovery aside from the above, is highly expensive usually. I once had a drive with only 20 word documents or so on it, and the data recovery company wanted 500 bucks to get them off.



Yea right...



Sometimes data loss can be a good thing, can you get those items back? It helps you refresh the files you do have in the sense that, lots of us keep files we THINK we need, but dont really need (unless for work), and its a good method of cleanup.



Wish I could help more, but thats about the extent of an answer to your question.

Answer 3

open the pcs up..you should purely be shifting one aspect panel...which ought to actual slide out, once the screws are undone. be sure the device is off and unplugged. get rid of the front covers of both pcs...it will be locked through a latch or screw from the interior...do not pressure it turns into too resistent. Now change into attentive to the hardisk, and disconnect the ribbon cable (this ia huge gray cable) and capacity cable (that is a white connecter with 4 wires ensuing in it) from the hardrive. Slide the hardrive out via the front. you could favor to drag hard to get rid of the cables. be sure you do not rip the guy wires of the capacity cable... you want the white element intact and disconnected. do a similar for the different computing gadget and regulate. then reconnect the cables contained in the very similar way... there must be no compatibility themes.

Answer 4

well what do u mean ciurcuitboard...if u mean all of the insides..no chance, as soon as you open a hard drive, and dust gets on the cd, sort of thing , its g gonna! your better off taking it to a pc shop and asking them to "rescue the data"