The drive controller is physically located on the electronics board. It is designed to provide conversion operations and transfer of information from the read/write heads to the drive interface.
A hard disk controller is a complex device – a microcomputer with its own processor, RAM and ROM, circuits, I/O system, etc. However, in most cases, manufacturers place them in one or two microchips. The controller handles a number of data stream transformation operations.
It is a fragile hard disk drive component, and its failure can lead to severe data loss. There are several memory controller failure reasons.
PITS Global Data Recovery Services offers reliable hard drive data retrieval solutions. Our engineers securely perform complex processes according to international standards.
Western Digital Internal Hard Drive Recovery
Recently, our data recovery team received an internal Western Digital 2TB hard drive. The client accidentally lost his data and tried to fix the problem himself. He changed the PCB but still could not access his vital files.
He decided not to damage the drive more, so he entrusted his device to our professional. Our technicians received the media storage and started the technical inspection right away.
Main Memory Controller Failure Causes:
Moisture
Sensitive electronics require ideal operating conditions. Even too humid air has a negative effect.
Voltage Instability
With a sharp increase in voltage, the sensitive microcircuits of the controller burn out.
Mechanical Damage
Damage is caused by improper cable connection or pushing the cable too hard.
Short Circuit
It occurs when individual parts of the board come into contact with conductive surfaces.
Media evaluation is our first step in the data recovery process. First, lab engineers determine the actual type of media damage, physical or logical, data recovery chances, and estimate the time it takes to complete the entire process. At this stage, a final analysis is made of which data recovery technologies will give the best results in the shortest possible time.
The evaluation showed that the memory controller was damaged. Thus the files were lost, and the drive was not detected in the BIOS. The customer tried to change the PCB, but as his conditions were not close to the lab state, he damaged the drive more as the new PCB was out of use.
Our dedicated customer service representative informed the client about the evaluation and estimated recovery time. After receiving his approval, our technicians started to recover the data from Western Digital HDD.
Internal HDD Memory Controller Recovery
To replace a faulty electronic board, it is not enough to match only the hard drive model since hard drives of the same model can easily belong to different families.
In order to quickly and safely select electronic boards for hard drives, it was necessary to have quite serious knowledge about their applicability in various models of hard drives.
Our technicians successfully transferred the circuit board thanks to years of experience, advanced data recovery tools, and a vast range of spare donors.
When installing the board, it was necessary to clean the connectors with isopropyl alcohol and tighten the screws in a checkerboard pattern. Soldering chips is also not particularly difficult. It was best to perform this procedure with a soldering gun, use a liquid neutral flux, and cover the surrounding parts with a thin aluminum plate.
After this step, our engineer started to extract all the available data. The hard disk’s spindle motor spun, but we could not access the files as the firmware was not transferred.
WD Internal Hard Disk Drive Firmware Recovery
To adapt the electronics board to a compatible circuit board, the engineers must transfer the ROM chip to the working controller. Reading the ROM and writing to the spare board to adapt it to the hard disk is also performed using the processor’s flash ROM data.
Our technician successfully connected the drive to a hardware programmer. This tool allowed him to access the ROM data for further copying it to the transferred memory controller. After this, the hard drive was detected, and the technician could successfully extract all the data.
Our expert recovered 99.8% of all data and copied them to a new hard disk drive. The client reviewed our results and approved them. We shipped his data back and successfully closed the case.
Call the PITS Global Data Recovery Services customer services line at (888) 611-0737 or fill out the form to request our cutting-edge data retrieval solutions. Our data retrieval experts fix hard drive failures and successfully restore their file systems.