ATA Module And How To Fix Damaged ATA Module
ATA Module Overview
1,It’s used to get into the factory mode.
2,The LBA value becomes 0 when it’s damaged.
3,ROM and ATA module must be compatible with each other.
How To Fix Damaged ATA Module For WD Black I Series
1.Find a compatible drive (same model number and pcb number)
2.Backup the ATA module from donor drive.
3.Swap the pcb and upload the ATA module.
4.Power off and on.
About are just general hdd repair tips, more hdd repair tips are available in our data recovery books or you may read them in other data recovery articles.
Showing posts with label HDD repair tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HDD repair tools. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Look Into Chips on Hard Drive PCB
There're mainly four chips on a hard drive's PCB and this article will give you an general idea of where they are and what they do.
The first chip: The heart chip of one PCB
The heart of PCB is the biggest chip in the middle called Micro Controller Unit or MCU. On modern HDDs MCU usually consists of Central Processor Unit or CPU which makes all calculations and Read/Write channel - special unit which converts analog signals from heads into digital information during read process and encodes digital information into analog signals when drive needs to write. MCU also has IO ports to control everything on PCB and transmit data through SATA interface.
Chip 2: The Memory Chip
The Memory chip is DDR SDRAM memory type chip. Size of the memory defines size of the cache of HDD. Usually you find the size of memory in datasheet of the HDD, theoretically it means HDD has that size of cache but it's not quite true. Because memory logically divided on buffer or cache memory and firmware memory. CPU eats some memory to store some firmware modules and as far as we know only Hitachi/IBM drives show real cache size in data sheets for the other drives you can just guess how big is the real cache size.
Chip 3: VCM(Voice Coil Motor controller) controller chip
This chip is the most power consumption chip on PCB. It controls spindle motor rotation and heads movements. The core of VCM controller can stand working temperature of 100C/212F.
Chip 4: Flash ROM Chip
Flash ROM chip stores part of the drive's firmware. When you apply power on a drive, MCU chip reads content of the flash chip into the memory and starts the code. Without such code the drive wouldn't even spin up. Sometimes there is no flash chip on PCB that means content of the flash located inside MCU.
A million thanks to Data Recovery Salon for sharing such an excellent platform for sharing data recovery knowledge here. I will support you by sharing more of mine.
The first chip: The heart chip of one PCB
The heart of PCB is the biggest chip in the middle called Micro Controller Unit or MCU. On modern HDDs MCU usually consists of Central Processor Unit or CPU which makes all calculations and Read/Write channel - special unit which converts analog signals from heads into digital information during read process and encodes digital information into analog signals when drive needs to write. MCU also has IO ports to control everything on PCB and transmit data through SATA interface.
Chip 2: The Memory Chip
The Memory chip is DDR SDRAM memory type chip. Size of the memory defines size of the cache of HDD. Usually you find the size of memory in datasheet of the HDD, theoretically it means HDD has that size of cache but it's not quite true. Because memory logically divided on buffer or cache memory and firmware memory. CPU eats some memory to store some firmware modules and as far as we know only Hitachi/IBM drives show real cache size in data sheets for the other drives you can just guess how big is the real cache size.
Chip 3: VCM(Voice Coil Motor controller) controller chip
This chip is the most power consumption chip on PCB. It controls spindle motor rotation and heads movements. The core of VCM controller can stand working temperature of 100C/212F.
Chip 4: Flash ROM Chip
Flash ROM chip stores part of the drive's firmware. When you apply power on a drive, MCU chip reads content of the flash chip into the memory and starts the code. Without such code the drive wouldn't even spin up. Sometimes there is no flash chip on PCB that means content of the flash located inside MCU.
A million thanks to Data Recovery Salon for sharing such an excellent platform for sharing data recovery knowledge here. I will support you by sharing more of mine.
Samsung Head Swap Tips-Donor Search
So when you confirm it is physical head damage which requires you to perform the head swap to extract the lost data, the next step is to find a donor head or donor hard drive. What's a donor hard drive for Samsung head swap?
From the old families before Victor, Puma, Verna & etc. ( Max capacity 120Gb, Max Head number 4 ) donor drive for Heads stack has to be chosen by the 4-th symbol on the side sticker which consist from 5 symbols. There are 3 versions of this sticker: xxxAx, xxxRx, xxxSx. 4-th symbol should match on patient and on donor drive, this symbol is responsible for this drive Heads stack manufacturer.
From the families like Palo, Magma, P80M, Delphi and other ( Max capacity 160Gb, Max Head number 4 ) to Poseidon family ( Max capacity 250Gb, Max Head number 4 ), the donor drive could be recognized by other symbols on the top sticker after P/V. There are 2 versions of such sticker: P\V: xS, P\V: xA. As you see the second symbol should be matched. Nowadays this sticker as P/V: xA does not exists on manufactured drives.
There are no symbols/codes responsible for Heads on the HDD stickers for Trident( T133(S)), T166(S), M60(S), M80(S) ) families . But the hard drive manufacturer started to use only "S ( SAE )" heads. So , for this families, the heads stack donor has to belong same family and its heads map should be the same as on patient.
Learn more Samsung data recovery tips here shared by other authors in Data Recovery Salon.
From the old families before Victor, Puma, Verna & etc. ( Max capacity 120Gb, Max Head number 4 ) donor drive for Heads stack has to be chosen by the 4-th symbol on the side sticker which consist from 5 symbols. There are 3 versions of this sticker: xxxAx, xxxRx, xxxSx. 4-th symbol should match on patient and on donor drive, this symbol is responsible for this drive Heads stack manufacturer.
From the families like Palo, Magma, P80M, Delphi and other ( Max capacity 160Gb, Max Head number 4 ) to Poseidon family ( Max capacity 250Gb, Max Head number 4 ), the donor drive could be recognized by other symbols on the top sticker after P/V. There are 2 versions of such sticker: P\V: xS, P\V: xA. As you see the second symbol should be matched. Nowadays this sticker as P/V: xA does not exists on manufactured drives.
There are no symbols/codes responsible for Heads on the HDD stickers for Trident( T133(S)), T166(S), M60(S), M80(S) ) families . But the hard drive manufacturer started to use only "S ( SAE )" heads. So , for this families, the heads stack donor has to belong same family and its heads map should be the same as on patient.
Learn more Samsung data recovery tips here shared by other authors in Data Recovery Salon.
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