So /g/, I know you are not my personal tech support team, but I need to know what is wrong with this Laptop HDD. It won't boot anymore, so I plugged it in to my PC and whenever the signal cable is connected to the motherboard, my computer won't get past POST screen. However, I can hear it spinning up for a few seconds, and it does pick up some speed, but after a few moments it just stops.
I inspected closely and found these marks on the PCB. Is it rust? Burn marks? Can any of you tell me what they are? I guess it makes no difference to know but I;m curious as to what the failure is. By the way, the laptop to which this HDD belongs is in pretty bad shape.
I'll post the rest of the pictures below.
BTW i tried scratching some of it off, you can see the scrape marks in the OP pic
>>51937292
Corrosion maybe from certain types of moisture. I can see it has eaten through the PCB vias so you might need a new board.
Can you remove it and take some photos of the underside where the components are?
>>51937393
Sure, give me a minute
>>51937292
Your drive has vd
So this is the part of the PCB that connects to the HDD. As you can see there's some interesting iridescent markings which I supposed are caused by excessive heat. The rest of the PCB looks fine, though.
This is the part where it connects. This is the HDD.
>>51937622
Try cleaning those contacts with some rubbing alcohol and cotton wool swabs, they look pretty crusty and this could be causing a poor connection.
>>51937687
Will do.
>>51937292
Looks like pincushion distortion on your camera lens, OP.
>>51937724
It's a shitty cell phone camera, I'm using a magnifying glass to take decent pictures. Otherwise it wouldn't even focus.
>>51937622
Are you sure that no liquid has gotten onto it? It does look like contact corrosion.
But yes definitively try some alcohol swabs, make sure you get them contact points all nice and shiny then report back.
>>51937802
Hmm I don't know, it's not mine, although the rest of the computer is in poor condition so I wouldn't be surprised.
Ok, so I scrubbed as much as I could and this is the result.
>>51937989
Did you use rubbing alcohol? Some of them could do with a little bit more cleaning but that is definitely looking much better.
>>51938047
Yeah, it seems that's as clean as I can get them. Should I try plugging it in now?
those are test pads m8
>>51938140
Yeah go for it, but first double check the pins on the hard drive side and make sure there is no corrosion on the ends of them too.
Be very careful as they are very fragile.
>>51938164
Nah they mate up with the motor and head contacts here >>51937653
>OP plugged it in, explosion
>OP is kill
>>51938227
Not yet Anon
>>51938185
So the pins are looking OK, I'll plug in now...
>>51938282
hmm looks like some green stuff on the bottom left pin but if it checks good then give it a try.
>>51938296
Tried but its still not working. I double checked the green speck but it seems to be a reflection. Pins look fine.
Don't know what else to try.
>>51938452
It's likely that the board is fucked. See if you can find another drive of the same model and swap.
>>51938493
I'll do that. Thank you very much for the help anon.
Have some win 95 chewing gum.
>>51938452
hmm sounds like the corrosion has done some damage to the board, usually a bad disk just causes read and write errors but a bad board can cause initialization problems (freezing at post).
Does your motherboard have a gsata port? if so it might be worth connecting it to that and seeing if it will at least allow you to post. Then you could run hirens bootcd and run drive diagnostics.
>>51937292
By the way via's are those little round holes on the board that look like test points, they actually electrically link one layer of the board to another.
I've seen cases where corrosion has eaten away at these so much that it breaks any electrical connection. Some of the darker dull looking ones could have suffered from this fate.
>>51938540
Thankyou.
>>51938633
Yeah, I'm afraid I'll have to look for a replacement PCB. I wish people took better care of their stuff man...
>>51938553
Sadly my mobo doesn't have gsata ports, just plain ol sata.
>>51938703
> I wish people took better care of their stuff man...
Me too. My extended family are always trashing their expensive tech items, but on the bright side I've gotten a few free laptops out of it. I've got a 2008 toshiba laptop here that had mold growing inside it!
What model hard drive is it? Toshiba by any chance?
>>51938796
Its a seagate uuh momentus 7200.4
>>51938796
Sorry its upside down, posting with cell phone
>>51939070
>>51939142
hmm well I guess just try and get hold of another PCB, but don't put any money into it its just not worth it.
Is there any valuable data on it?
>>51939213
Yeah, this guy has some stuff in there he wants back. Oh well, let's see how it goes.
I'll fund People for the Ethical Treatment of Electronics, or PETE
>>51937292
NSA can read your data from these pins, even if your data is encrypted.
Those solder points are the remnants of the slave master jumper pins all hard drives used to have
>>51938633
Btw, in an unlaminated board you can fix broken connections with a graphite pencil
>>51939609
Not on this case, I assume?
Laminated is the key term
>>51939733
You can try reflowing any solder by taking a soldering iron and momentarily touching everywhere you see brass
Blast it with some contact cleaner.
>>51939955
>>51939942
I don't have a soldering iron or contact cleaner heh, I'll go buy that tomorrow, maybe make a new thread.
Thank you very much to all of you. May Raptor Jesus bless you all.
>>51937767
That was actually pretty clever of you, anon, I wouldn't expect most people to have thought of an idea like that.
reminds me of the time I was taking pictures of shit that was too far away with a hunting scope.
>>51937292
>itt: people who have no fucking clue
try spraypainting it a different color, anon.
>>51940165
Heh thanks, would like to see those pics
Did the same with this one
>>51937292
I'm sorry anon. I know you don't want to hear this but your HDD is HIV +
Did you happen to splurge on the components and it trickled in?
Somebody opened your hdd and smeared his cum around
>>51938540
>chewing this gives you blue teeth
>>51937292
Looks like someone tried to hack your HDD.
>>51937622
vinegar usually cleans better than alcohol
