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fried controller board

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:58 pm
by memius
i have an old toshiba 20G laptop hard drive which suffered an electrostatic shock. it wouldn't show up in the bios, nor in the os after that. it does spin, and makes clacking noises. i think the shock caused a controller board malfunction.

now you're all thinking it's dead, because of the clacking, but since the reason for the malfunction was not a physical bump, i don't think it's the reader arm that's broken.

ubcd managed to see it, but not diagnose or read it.

i'm a newbie to ubcd, so there may be tricks on it that i haven't discovered, but in case there is no such thing on the cd, it would be very nice with some software that could override the controller board.

Re: fried controller board

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:35 pm
by StopSpazzing
memius wrote:i have an old toshiba 20G laptop hard drive which suffered an electrostatic shock. it wouldn't show up in the bios, nor in the os after that. it does spin, and makes clacking noises. i think the shock caused a controller board malfunction.

now you're all thinking it's dead, because of the clacking, but since the reason for the malfunction was not a physical bump, i don't think it's the reader arm that's broken.

ubcd managed to see it, but not diagnose or read it.

i'm a newbie to ubcd, so there may be tricks on it that i haven't discovered, but in case there is no such thing on the cd, it would be very nice with some software that could override the controller board.
The controller chip for the HD is manufactured to the hardware specific...this goes for any hardware. There is no way legally to reprogram or modify it...aswell as bypass it as it controls the hardware. BUT you could try finding the exact same model online that doesnt work for whatever reason, and replace the circuit board and see if that allows it to work.

I will say that if its constantly clicking... and doesnt stop..then I would trash it.

You could possibly try knoppix as people have said that for whatever reason it can read and access HD's that cant be accessed by any other program they tried. Its worth a shot...and its free and a livecd. I would unplug it and let it sit overnight out of the computer to see if it can possibly "decharge" and then try the knoppix as your last resort.