The most common phrase that you hear from users who have problems with the hard drive: "Change to me the controller on the hard drive, I'll copy the data myself." Yes, there are cases of damage to the HDD controller. The main causes of its malfunction are electrical and mechanical effects.
At once it is necessary to make a reservation that on modern hard disks the simple rearrangement of the electronics board will not yield anything. Even if the rigid are very similar in model and volume.
When you find a hard drive whose control panel looks the same as your damaged controller, you must buy it. The price of the used disk will certainly be many times lower than the cost of storing data in a special laboratory. Check your drive. When you get the disk, first find out if it works flawlessly.
If not, try creating a partition on it using the Disk Management snap-in and format it. You will do this as quickly as possible. When all these steps are completed correctly, copy several files to a new partition. If this operation was successful, the disk seems to be usable, so you can use the control panel.
The hard disk controller contains the firmware that is associated with the hard disk. The discrepancy between the firmware of the electronics board and microcode of the hard disk will not allow it to be determined by the operating system. For a controller to replace the controller, it is necessary that, in addition to the firmware, the CPU and all the microcircuits on the hard disk electronics board fully coincide.
Now you can take the exchange controller. You will not have a suitable screwdriver. Carefully unscrew the plate on damaged and working discs. In older models, you also need to disconnect the ribbon cable. Between the disk and the controller is usually a thin layer of insulation foam. It covers not only the place where the contact plate touches the disk, so you do not have to delete it in any way. Then remove the controller from the drive as close as possible, so that all contacts are in the right place.
If you disconnect the plug from the ribbon cable, connect it. How to recover files? Now it's easy to connect an old drive with a new controller on your computer. Then start the system and check if you have restored access to your resources. Immediately copy them to the new disk.
When replacing the controller on the hard disk is not required
The hard disk is spinning up when the power is applied, it is determined by the computer, but the data is not available. The controller has nothing to do with it. Most likely the whole thing is in a lot of other sectors (usually at the beginning of the hard drive) that interfere with the operation of the HDD.
Bad sites can be in the service area of the hard disk. This can also be the reason that the drive is not ready.
How to recover files - additional information. After installing this free tool on a media that does not have any lost files, run it and follow the wizard's instructions. In the second window, select the type of resource that you want to restore.
If you lost any files, select "Other" and click "Next". In the next window, enter the media containing the files you are looking for. Select the option "At a specific location", click "Browse" and select the desired drive. As a result, it displays the detected files. However, most of their names differ from the original ones. Therefore, you must click the "Switch to Advanced Mode" button to preview the previews of individual files and details. Now you can more easily extract the files you need.
A typical example of hard drives Seagate Barracuda 7200.11. The known problem of the 7200.11 series is the violation of the firmware of the drive. Nevertheless, more than half of the users who asked us, persistently asked to change the controller on the hard drive.
Another case. The hard disk is spinning, not determined by the computer. A strange mechanical knock is heard. Here the controller is also not to blame. The problem with the block of magnetic heads.
Mechanical damage to the hard disk controller
The most common failure is the damage to the electronics board connector. If the cables are sluggishly connected or the user makes great efforts, the connector socket breaks. After replacing the smart connector, we get a workable hard drive.
But there are nuances. If the user tries to start the hard disk, the power supply starts to move (press) the power connector or interface cable. The consequence of such actions can be a variety of problems. And electrical damage to the elements on the controller board, and sticking the block of magnetic heads on the magnetic surface of the hard drive due to the unstable operation of the drive.
Sometimes, if the hard disk is sloppy or removed, some elements from the card are broken from the computer (on those controller models where the elements are on the outside of the board). In this case, after repairing the controller, we also get a working drive. If the user did not notice a breakdown and turned on the hard drive, then in this case there may be electrical damage to both the board and the switch on the head unit.
When you need to replace the controller on the hard drive
Serious mechanical damage to the HDD controller, which does not allow it to be repaired to restore its functionality. In this case, yes, it is necessary to select the necessary controller for replacement and to solder or rewire the firmware from the broken board.
The hard drive locks the computer. Either the hard drive does not show any signs of life at the time of power supply. This is due to the electrical breakdown of the controller.
If the damage is serious and repair it, replacing the burnt parts can not be, then the controller should be replaced.
If there are problems with the power supply of the computer, because of voltage surges in addition to the motherboard, the hard disk controller suffers.
The controller may burn due to incorrect connection of the power connector (reverse polarity). When disconnecting or connecting the hard disk to "hot", i.e. while the computer is running.
The computer does not turn on with the hard drive connected.
If the computer does not turn on with the hard disk, and after it turns off normally it starts, then the problem with this hard disk. This is usually due to the electrical breakdown of the hard drive. Often due to a voltage jump, the HDD controller elements breakdown and a short circuit (short circuit) may form. When you try to turn on the computer with a hard disk that has a short circuit, the protection of the power supply is activated and the computer immediately turns off.
Restoring the hard disk begins with the diagnostics and repair of the HDD controller. After the controller is restored, the hard disk is completely diagnosed for correct operation of the hard disk magnetic heads unit, determining the read and write speed of the drive.
In the case of electrical breakdown, there are various possible damages to the controller and the hard drive itself:
1. Burn out only the HDD controller.
In this case, the repair of the hard drive is limited only by restoring the operability of its controller (replacement of burned elements), or by replacing it with flashing the ROM to work correctly with this hard disk. In this case, after repairing the controller or replacing, the hard disk will work properly.
2. Damage to the hard disk controller and a partial loss of efficiency of the magnetic head unit.
The hard disk after the repair of the controller can be determined by the operating system, but does not work properly. For example, it stops working in UDMA mode. In this case, HDD repair may not be possible. Data recovery (if necessary) is carried out by selecting a reading mode for successful reading of information.
3. Damage to the hard disk controller and failure of the hdd head unit switch.
This is the most "sad" option. In this case, HDD repair is completely impossible. The switch chip is located inside the hermetic zone on the magnetic head unit. It performs switching (switching) of data streams when reading-writing a hard disk to a certain magnetic head. Data recovery from the hard disk is possible only by replacing the HDD magnetic head unit or patching the switch on the head unit and then selecting the hard drive read mode
If the tracks on the HDD controller burn out, this is a bad sign. This indicates that there was an effect of high currents. Accordingly, the elements between which the tracks burned, also suffered. In the figure, burnt tracks connect the drive chip of the spindle motor of the hard drive with the elements of its strapping. In 99% of cases this chip also burned out.
The photo shows a burned out chip of the spindle motor on the Seagate hard drive controller.
If the hard disk controller is electrically damaged, the items near the power connector of the hard drive should be the first to fail. The photo shows the hard disk controller after a long exposure to increased voltage. It can be shown that the controller "burned down". And burned in the place where there is a connector that connects the controller and the hardness of the hard drive.
