www.deadharddrive.com

[Saltshaker]

OK,so its been a while since I've posted and although I am far from a pro on data recovery, I still would like to recovery my old files from my dead drive. So a bit of history before my question..my 120gb ATA serial Seagate stopped working after doing a reinstall on my primary drive.Bare in mind this Seagate was only a secondary drive but upon reboot the drive failed to be seen even during post.I pulled the drive and found that it was not spinning up...nothing.I took a meter and found no power was going to the motor.So I found a PCB that matched close enough and after swapping boards the drive now starts to spin for a few minutes but then stops like it cant read itself properly.The computer still does not see it, Ive matched the boards the best I could with the following and had someone swap a chip on the board from the orginal PCB. Cant remember now exactly which chip but I was told, it retains info unique to the original drive.The following numbers I matched are as follows:
Original Drive:
Model: ST3120023AS
S/N: 3KA232Q1
P/N: 9W4011-301
HDA P/N: 100263990
Config: A1M-01
Firmware: 3.01
Date Code 03501
Site Code AMK

PCB sticker: 100269163 A 7345YGXS

New PCB From New Drive:

Model: ST3120023AS
S/N: 3KA1ZQNX
P/N: 9W4011-301
HDA P/N: 100263990
Config: A1M-01
Firmware: 3.01
Date Code 03451
Site Code AMK

PCB sticker: 100269163 A 7334599K

Like I said, Im not a pro. But it would seem the motor is barely spinning and Im inclinded to believe the spindle motor is worn to a point that its not gaining enough momentum or there is some other mechanical issue.I actually found someone that can swap the old platters into the donor drive for a very reasonable price. So my question(s) is this. If in fact I get the platters swapped, what would the best approach to data recovery? What I mean is, I know that once you power up the drive you may only have one good shot so if it spins up and is seen, should l try to run an image of it with some software or just let windows mount the drive and try to copy files from it?
Sorry for the long post,Again I an new so bare with me but I would appreciate anyones advice they have to offer.Thanks.

[harddrivespecialist]

You new PCB is a good match for your original drive. It should have worked. You might have some other problem with your drive, which have to be diagnosed accurately.
Platter swap is last thing you want to do.
_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

[Saltshaker]

[harddrivespecialist]

You said, your drive spins up. Drives usually spin up to a normal speed or they don't spin up at all.
Before you do anything foolish, you have to get accurate diagnostics and after that figure out a solution.
_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

[sunnydreamspace]

have you swap ROM chip when replace PCB? sometime motor don't spin at all no meaning motor problem. it may PCB or head problem cause.
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provide Hard drive PCB,entire drive/ Data Recovery service.... big HDD resource. talk to me immediately! sunnydreamspace@hotmail.com
skype: sunnydreamspace

[Saltshaker]

[sunnydreamspace]

[Saltshaker]