Are WD PCBs (and BIOS chips) compatible for identical drives?

jttraverse

New member
I happened to see a YT video in which 4 different models of hard drives were being tested for their PCB compatibility. There were two identical drives being checked for each of the four types, and in this test the PCBs were simply unscrewed and swapped, meaning that the BIOS chips were left in place on each of the boards.

Two of the drives being tested were 3.5" WD 'Green' drives (AV drives, I think, common in set-top boxes), and what was interesting to me is that the WD drives were the only ones where he swapped the PCBs and the drives worked fine! He checked them with some testing software and accessed the data and they worked.

For each of the other brands, the drives did not work without their original PCBs installed. In two instances the drives simply did not show, and in one instance there was noticeable clicking and nothing showed. Switching back to their original PCBs made them all work again. Obviously there was something, like the BIOS chip, that was wedded to the original drive itself.

So, does anyone here know whether WD uniquely builds their drives so that PCBs between identical drives/models are interchangeable without having to swap the BIOS chip to make it work? It could be a huge buying factor to me in the future (especially since I'm having to recover a non-WD drive right now.)
Thanks,
JT
 

pclab

Moderator
We try to always replace ROM, since is the easiest way to know everything will work.
Why bother to swap a PCB, test it, doesn't work, go back and replace the ROM? Just replace is and it's all OK.
 
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