Need someone with extended soldering skills and equipment

[Inmyrem]

I am in need of someone with extended soldering skills and equipment to remove the chip in the attached picture from a hard drive pcb and put it onto another hard drive pcb.  A hard drive pcb of mine took a voltage fluctuation and the pcb croaked.  If anyone has the skills and equipment and is relatively close to Tampa, please contact me!

Thanks,

Jason

[TheBatman]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that's possible?  With ALL those legs, I'd think the only way to remove it is to cut it off, then remove the remaining leg pieces individually, then solder on a new chip (if re-using this same board, which you're not).  Otherwise, I don't know how you could heat up and keep enough heat on enough legs at the same time to remove it without it becoming solid solder points again, there's just too many.  Can't you just buy a new chip, or does that chip contain data or something irreplaceable?  Maybe someone else can chime in who has much more experience than me if there's a way to do it, but I've seen chips with a LOT less legs than that where the feasible way to do it was cut the legs.

[HammysHangout ( Hammy )]

yeah, i am not going there with that crazy project.

Did you try swapping the controller PCB for the same model drive? i have recovered data that way.

[Inmyrem]

From what was described to me by a company that can do it, there are two methods to swap the chip and one to transfer the info from that bios chip.  The first is to use a focused hot air gun which comes with most medium to high end soldering stations.  He said that method is also a little more difficult because of having to quickly focus on all the pins to lift the chip.  He mentioned the best and easiest method is to use a machine that simultaneously heats up all the solder points, then suctions the chip off.  He mentioned that machine isn't exactly low priced either.  He mentioned the third option to transfer the info from the bios chip is the most expensive, because of how much the software costs.  I've asked him how much they'd charge me to swap the chips it if I were to provide the two pcb's and am waiting on that price.

As for swapping pcb's, already tried that with two boards of the exact same part number.  WD opted to put everything associated with the drive onto that one chip instead of using a separate firmware chip like most other manufacturers use.  I wish it were that simple.

[HammysHangout ( Hammy )]

contact channelmedic on klov, he has the smt tools and knowledge on doing it.

i have the tools, but will not even try to attempt.

[Inmyrem]

Ahh, that's right, channelmanic, haven't talked with him in about a year.  He does have the equipment and recently expanded.

[k7]

swap the hard drive controller. again...

the company is speaking of a BGA desoldering station. $17,000 when we priced it out professionally to do inhouse repairs of sony laptop motherboards.

ebay the exact hard drive part number and build date. if you swap the controller and have issues, you could have a crashed drive, or purchased a bad board. i've done this PCB swap a few times with success.

WD did not make a 1 off hard drive for you.

[Inmyrem]

I've spent a good amount of time researching it over the past month and pretty much have found that WD screwed people over by combining the rom with the main ic chip to .  They want people to send their drives in for repair instead of doing it themselves.  Hell, I did try two exact numbered pcb's over the past month too with no success of reading anything.  Drive spins fine.  WD set it so that damned ic chip has the specific info for that particular drive to be recognized properly.  I've found recommended places that will transfer the ic, but am waiting on them to give me a quote if I supply the working pcb instead of them.  Basically, I just need enough time to access the drive and pull a few hundred megs of family pictures which weren't anywhere else.  If WD had left the rom alone, I could have easily swapped the 8 pin chip.

[bit_slicer]

Any board assembly house worth their salt would be able to do it. Probably wouldn't cost you more than $50 bucks.

[HammysHangout ( Hammy )]

hence why i told him to pm channelmedic, as he does smt work, there is also ajcrm, and last but not least is irepairsega.

[k7]

Any board assembly house worth their salt would be able to do it. Probably wouldn't cost you more than $50 bucks.

i hope so...because the data recovery companies i deal with won't do a thing for under $600.00. it's such a high price market, that a friend of mine who manages one and i do it as a side project on our own...

WD does have some crap drives that i won't even buy new. especially the scorpio drives. i'm forwarding this to that friend to get his input. western digital won't repair customer hard drives, so why would they do that?

[k7]

alright, just spoke with him. i knew that picture looked wrong from what i've seen.

there should be an 8 leg rom chip at u12, maybe u13. that's what you have to swap to the new controller board. whoever you spoke with was giving you **** advice.


 

[Inmyrem]

No, there isn't.  As I said, WD integrated that chip into the larger MCU.  I would have done it myself if it were that simple.  Hold on a minute and I'll get a picture of the board itself to prove it.

[k7]

full hard drive model number, pls.

i assume the drive is just clicking with the replacement pcb? i don't do a lot of these at all, but john does this daily. i'll pass all info to him to see what can be done. this would be the first i've seen.

whatever price you get, he'll probably beat it. a lot of drive manufacturers dedicate the rom chip to the drive (i didn't know that), but for your drive to be designed near impossible to save data? that's just dirty...

[Inmyrem]

This is the best pic I could get at this time.  Directly below the MCU is where the 8 pin chip should be.  There are many WD hard drives that do not have that chip.  All the hard drive support places I've spoken with, including support forums and boards say it's a newer WD ROYL type of PCB. The ROM has been integrated into the main chip, so that main chip must either be removed and put onto the replacement pcb or a PC-3000 UDMA board can be used to copy the info off the chip and saved onto the new board's chip.  That board costs several thousand dollars and I'm still trying to find a place that can either swap the chip or transfer the chip's contents for that specific drive.  The drive I'm looking to replace the chip on is a WD5000AAKS.  From what I'm told, that number isn't important at all when it comes to replacing the pcb.  It's the number on the sticker of the pcb, which is 2061-701477-900 AB and the number etched on the pcb, which is 2060-701477-002 REV A.  Sadly, I only bought that drive due to a Black Friday deal several years ago.  I don't usually buy WD, because I was jilted by them many years back.