Help on swapping the PCB's

M

motorheadbiker

Geek Trainee
I have a samsung 40gb SP0411N. When ever i boot in my ASUS mobo it says primary master fail. So i tried connecting it in the secondary port... still it says secondary master fail.. but the drive is getting detected perfectly.. i guess there are some problem with the hard disk.. because i connected a different hard disk in the same mobo and tried booting it.. it worked fine... so i thought of replacing it by claiming for warranty...unfortunately the plastic surrounding the IDE pins is broken.. so i am not able to claim for the warranty.. I have another 80gb samsung HDD without warranty... can i swap the PCB of the 80gb wit that of 40gb? wil 40gb circuit work in 80gb drive? will there be any problem like short circuit or something like that? if i use the 80gb PCB in 40gb drive i can claim for warranty.. so wil swapping the PCB be helpful?? kindly help me thank you,,,

I have attached th circuits of 40gb and 80gb,,,,

PCB of 40gb :
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/2529/40gbip8.jpg

PCB of 80gb :

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4782/80gbkb9.jpg
 
I didn't get any pcb which is similar to the broken one... what wil exatcly happen if i swap the PCB's? wil it damage the PCB? or wil it damage the motor, media? what wil happen? should i take risk by swapping the PCB's?
 
another alternative is to try the HDD as master, slave, CS master & CS slave

BTW: CS = Cable Select, basically the location on the IDE cable decides whether a drive is master or slave, the end connector is master & the middle connector is slave
 
another idea: try using another known working IDE cable and also attach the HDD to another molex connector & combinations of different cables & PM, PS, SM, SS, CSM & CSS
 
i tried connecting a different hard disk to the same mobo, with different connectors and as PM, PS bla bla... hehe... but still not working... the victim hard disk doesnt show up any kinda error or bad setcors when connected to some other machine... whats going on??
 
it sounds like you've got an IDE port failure you could add a PCI HDD controller like this
2002187109292584837_th.jpg

or replace the mobo, but, it's cheaper & easier to add a HDD controller, you will probably find a fairly cheap controller with RAID & SATA
 
even i thought so...But if there is a problem in the IDE port how could other hard disks work fine? mysterious right.... hmmmm.... if i am not wrong will there be any problem in the BIOS chip?? shall i try replacing it? else i wil have to replace the hard disk... the victim hard disk is still under warranty but the plastic surrounding ide pin is broken... so cant be claimed... i dont have any other siilar PCB to swap it on, so that i can fool samsung service centre and claim for warranty... hehe
 
motorheadbiker said:
even i thought so...But if there is a problem in the IDE port how could other hard disks work fine?
Click to expand...
weird
motoheadbiker said:
mysterious right
Click to expand...
:agree:
motorheadbiker said:
any problem in the BIOS
Click to expand...
dunno, it wouldn't hurt to look in BIOS, but, i think you can only enable / disable the primary & secondary HDD controllers :unsure: but some mobo may be able to select different bit sizes (36bit, 48bit) :unsure:

if you meant remove the BIOS chip then no

clearing the BIOS may fix it[ot]i should have thought of that earlier :doh:[/ot]
 
Well,, i meant replacing the BIOS chip... i can get the same BIOS chip form he vendor and replace the chip... how can v clear the BIOS chip?? u mean resetting the BIOS by changing the jumper configuration or something else?? i can easily remove the chip because its not soldered.. i just checked the BIOS configuration.. you are right.. there are only options for enabling and disabling the controllers...hmmm :(
 
Replacing your bios chip wont sort your hdd issue.

If the drive is being recognised then its quite unlikely to be the pcb either. Id make replacing the circuit board last. When you do it has to be the same one. Even a pcb from a different revision of the same board might not work.

I really think its going to be faulty sectors or a physical error on the drive platters.
The diskcheckup program will tell you what is wrong with the drive. Im putting my bets on ID5 being 0.

Is the drive recognised in the admin tools thing in control panel? (disk management?) If so do a surface scan.

Post some screenshots of diskcheckup if you want me to have a look at them.

Press prtscn to take a screenshot (nothing will actually happen)
Open paint and press ctrl-v and save the image as a png/gif/jpeg.

Either way provided it isnt the jumpers set incorrectly it will probably be an issue of data recovery rather than getting the ting to work in the first place.
Maybe try getting the CHS setting from the manufacturer and enter them manually.
 
scan disk didn't show up any errors.. so i am gonna use seagate disk manager for this samsung HDD and zero fill this drive... and after that i am gonna try out low level format... hope that helps... i wil do that and get back in a while :)
 
Scandisk is terrible... the manufacturer tools are probably the best, though sometimes a little limited.

Have you tried formatting the drive? I thought you were shy to format because of the data loss!

Id try a normal format before a zero fill. Do you have any bad sectors?

Low level formats aren't possible with new drives. You'll find loads of programs that say they low level format etc but its all a load of crap. At best they zero fill.
 
zeus said:
Low level formats aren't possible with new drives. You'll find loads of programs that say they low level format etc but its all a load of crap. At best they zero fill.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah??? What is the difference between low level format and zero filling the drive?
 
It used to mean you were redefining the cylinders on each of the tracks but now its done once in the factory and never again.
Back in the old days you could do this but I think due to the increase in capacity of the drives, speeds and complicated designs (id imagine down to reliability too) they stopped offering the option.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top