How To Repair Swap Hard Drive PCB (Video)

Damaged PCB always has the obvious burnt marks. If the HDD can't spin, you can't hear any noise or just hear a tick sound, which means the PCB is probably faulty.

Hard Drive PCB Circuit Boards Repair:

Most HDD PCBs' failures are caused by Motor Controller Chip burnt, then the TVS diodes burnt and Main Controller IC burnt.

In most cases, Motor Controller chip burnt can be seen by eyes. We can see a burnt hole or raised part on it. TVS diodes' short circuit can be test by a multimeter. Main Controller IC is difficult to be test. Burnt TVS diodes or Motor Controller IC can be repaired by using the same model chip or diodes. Of course, this operation is just be used by the technicians who has the Circuit board repair knowledge.

For common user, the best way is swapping HDD PCB boards.

Video: Hard drive PCB repair swap guide

The following video will show you how to swap the PCB boards for the hard drives including Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Maxtor, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Hitachi. Hard Drive PCB Replacement Guide

More hard drive PCB replacement videos can be found on this page: hard drive PCB replacement videos

The below symptoms of HDD/PCB are may be caused by failure PCB:

  • HDD can't spin up. Either no sound or a short, quiet tickling sound can be heard.
  • A burning smell can be sensed coming from the HDD or PCB.
  • Burned components on the PCB.
  • The HDD be connected to wrong power supply.
  • PCB's interface damaged.

Note: Replacement the PCB will not solve the problem below:

  • The drive will power up normally (no ticking noises, errors etc) but will not be recognized by the computer.
  • The drive will power up normally and be recognized correctly but will report a size of 0 bytes
  • The drive will power up but report SMART errors on boot.