How to repair a hard drive circuit board

Hard drive failure can happen for many reasons, some simple to fix others require professional and specialist treatment. If there is damage to the circuit board that controls the hard drive you can usually recover the hard drive yourself using the following simple solution. Rather than starting with an expensive hard drive recovery firm or software why not try the easiest method first. But how can you recover your hard drive circuit board?

The answer is very simple, by finding a like for like replacement and swapping the circuit board that controls the disk. Remove your hard drive from your machine and find the sticker on the drive, usually on the reverse side to the circuit board. Look for the manufacturer and model number of the drive on the sticker and make note of these. With the drive information in hand turn to the Internet and use sites such as eBay, eBid or any retailers of hard drives, preferably second hand to reduce the costs.

Check the listings to ensure he device works and order one for as cheap as possible. Alternatively you could check with hard drive destruction companies and see if they have the correct board, this method may take longer with no guarantees but will invariably be cheaper.

Upon arrival of the working drive check the circuit boards on the reverse of the drives, if they match, which they should do, carefully unscrew the new working board and unplug the thin cable connecting the board to the disk. Then unscrew the broken broad and whilst taking time and being careful not to damage the board, replace, then screw in the board onto the drive.

Reattach the hard drive into the machine and turn the system on. The repaired hard drive should now boot into the operating system as before and you shouldn’t notice any differences.

This solution will only recover hard drives where the circuit board is at fault. Other issues should be researched and the drive taken to a specialist where necessary. This solution has been proved for the reasons mentioned above where the drive had been dropped and the circuit board damaged.

 


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