Many people who lose their data and turn to YouTube may be delighted to find somebody claim that simply swapping a PCB board is all they need to do. They hope it will save them thousands compared to paying a professional, get them their data back, and make their hard drive usable again. This is unfortunately not the case and the advice provided by many such YouTubers isn’t just wrong, it’s downright dangerous because it can easily lead to the data becoming unrecoverable. It used to be true on very old drives (think early 2000’s) that a simple PCB swap could repair a drive if the only cause of failure was the PCB board, but modern drives store unique adaptive information on the ROM chip so swapping in a new PCB board won’t work unless that data (or the entire chip) is transferred as well. Even if a PCB swap is performed properly and the data can be retrieved, a hard drive should never be considered “repaired” or safe to store data on after having this procedure done.
If you want to attempt a PCB swap, keep reading to find out how!
Important: This guide applies only to conventional spinning-disk hard drives.
How common is PCB failure?
PCB board failures account for only a small percentage of hard drive failures. Less than 15% of the cases that come into our lab are due to PCB failure. Much more likely failure scenarios include firmware failure, head failure, and platter damage. Still, you are wondering, are you in that “lucky” 15% of who experienced a PCB failure, and if so, can you recover the data yourself? To answer that question, you’ll need to know how to diagnose a likely PCB failure and what’s involved in swapping the board.
What causes PCB failure?
PCB failure often happens as a result of liquid damage and power surges/brown outs. In most of these cases, the board absorbs all of the damage, but in some the damage will continue into the drive and damage the heads, meaning that even if the PCB is replaced properly, the data will remain inaccessible. A broken connector caused by a drop or other sudden physical impact is another common type of PCB failure.
What are the symptoms of PCB failure?
Drives with PCB failures will fail to identify to BIOS/Disk Management/Disk utility. They will often fail to spin up entirely. They may have visible damage to the connector, burn marks on the board, or the board may smell burnt.
What about SSDs or Hybrid Drives (SSHDs)?
SSDs are an entirely different situation since the board and the data storage area are essentially the same thing. SSHDs store data on the PCB board itself so you can’t do simple ROM swaps with them or you will lose that data and potentially all of your data.
What if my drive is clicking?
If your drive is clicking, it could be due to a PCB failure, but 95%+ of these cases are due to head failure. If the drive failed after a drop and there isn’t visible damage to the connector, you can pretty much rule out PCB failure entirely. If your drive failed directly after a drop and is making unusual noises it is imperative that you not try to DIY your recovery. Why? Because the drive heads likely come into contact with the platter and will continue to do so every time the drive is spun up. Even being turned on for a few seconds can cause your data to literally be scraped off the platters. We receive many such drives which are unfortunately unrecoverable because somebody tried to save a few hundred bucks. It’s also worth mentioning that most data recovery companies will charge you an extra fee, sometimes in the hundreds of dollars, for drives which you have worked on yourself. Some places will simply refuse to even take these cases. They will know if you broke the seal on a drive or tried to solder the ROM chip yourself.
Is there any way to rule out PCB failure?
Drives that show up to BIOS/Disk management, even if their size is incorrect or show up as unformatted/raw are almost certainly not suffering from PCB failure.
Why not try to swap it myself?
In data recovery, we say there is an ‘exception to every rule’ and this applies to PCB swaps as well. Sometimes we have cases where we have to match a donor PCB board differently than for every other case because that year the manufacturer tried labeling their drives a new way. Without the proper training and wide knowledge base that a professional has, there is a good chance you will do something incorrectly. Just because you watch a YouTube video on surgery and practice cutting cakes doesn’t mean you can safely perform it on somebody. One way to think of this is that technicians at computer repair stores do not have the training or equipment to do data recovery including board swaps, they refer to us because we are specialists. Ask yourself, are you going to surpass their technical knowledge by doing a bit of research online? If you are experimenting with a spare drive you have, that’s fine, but if you are working with valuable data, it’s another story. Here’s a list of all the things that can go wrong:
- You select the wrong donor board and your data gets destroyed
- You select the right donor board but because you have no way to test it, the board is bad, and your data gets destroyed
- You select the right donor board and it works but during the hard swap you overheat the chip or something else on the board and your data gets destroyed
- You don’t overheat the chip but not all the legs get securely soldered onto the patient board and the chip gets over or under-voltaged and the chip burns out so your data gets destroyed
- All the legs of the chip are properly soldered on but you soldered it on the wrong direction/orientation so the chip gets fried and your data gets destroyed
- The chip is small and you grab it with tweezers but the hold isn’t great and you drop the chip and it ends up in your carpet and now you’ll never find it so your data is destroyed
- You move the wrong chip(s) and your data gets destroyed
It’s also worth noting that swapping PCB board requires moving the data stored in the ROM chip from the patient board to the donor board. This can be done via a “soft swap” or a “hard swap”. Normally, we do a “soft swap” with the assistance of software which costs thousands of dollars as it is the safest way to transfer the data. Without software, you will have to use a solder reflow station or micro-soldering iron to do a “hard swap” by physically moving the ROM chip(s) from one board to the other. If you use too high of a heat, hold a “safer” heat for too long, or don’t get all the legs re-soldered on right, you can easily destroy the data contained in the ROM chip. If this happens, nobody will be able to recover your data no matter how much money you throw at them. It is really easy for this to happen, which is why we only use hard swaps if they are absolutely necessary.
I’m dead set on trying this though
Ok ok ok, I’ve heard all your warnings, I understand that this is basically data suicide, but I’m ok losing all my data because it isn’t worth much in the first place, and I am willing to keep going. What do I need to do in order to swap the PCB board?
- First, you need to find a donor board. In order to replace your existing PCB board, you must find another nearly identical board to replace it with. The cost of these boards ranges from $9-$200 with most being around $15. Consult our PCB donor matching guide to help you find one.
- Take pictures of both sides of your patient board and donor board. Your patient is the original board that came with your drive, the donor is the one you ordered.
- Next, you need to move the data located on the ROM chip from the patient board to the donor board. If you don’t have a way to do this with software, you can move the chip itself using a solder reflow station. Be sure you have all the pins soldered in correctly and that the chip is oriented the correct way.
- Place the donor board onto the drive and start it up. If the drive is still not functional either there are issues aside from the PCB board, the donor you ordered is also malfunctioning or not compatible, or you did the swap incorrectly.