MQ01UBD100 USB to USB!

[achis]

Hi everyone!
I am new to this forum, nice to see you all, I would like to ask a few questions as it is my first time trying to recover data from a soldered-USB drive.

My broken drive is a MQ01UBD100 with a PCB Board number G003250A

Nothing lights up, no spin attempt so I guess I may be lucky with another PCB Board.

I found a same model drive but with PCB Board number G3448A

1) Does anybody know if the swap will work?]

2) What is the exact microchip I have to transfer from the previous board to new one?

I found tons of info but for moving the USB pcb to a SATA one..

Thanks everyone, any welp will be very appreciated

 

[jol]

1) Does anybody know if the swap will work?]

check if the MCU and MC are the same
but why not replace to a SATA PCB (if you already replacing the PCB) here is the compatible list

2) What is the exact microchip I have to transfer from the previous board to new one?

IC602
warning!, if you damage or overheat that chip your data is gone

 

[achis]

Thanks for the answer, I know it is a risky process.. Actually the real reason of not replacing with a SATA board is that I don't have one, while I do have a USB one..

 

[SilverPuppy]

So I'm about to do the same thing. Have a water-damaged board and a donor board. The USB drive was left in the rain. :roll: I had hoped that I could get away with not swapping the IC602, but of course it wouldn't initialize the drive. It did at least spin and move the heads, sounding healthy in the process, confirming my belief that the water never got into the body of the drive. WHEW!

My questions are as follows:

1. How sensitive is that IC602 ROM chip? I am aware that overheating it will kill it, and then it's off to a high-dollar data recovery specialist who can use trial-and-error on the parameters in their $250,000 rig until it hits a set that works. Will simply desoldering one pin at a time with a cooldown between be reasonably safe? I don't have a hot air station, which is what seems to be recommended for this task. I've replaced a lot of capacitors......but they're a lot more forgiving.

2. What are the odds that the water-damaged board would give me a serial ROM dump since it doesn't spin up the drive or get recognized by the USB host? I'm guessing that it won't, but it would be worth a try....maybe? Is that RS232 or TTL? The info I've seen led me to believe that it's just RS232 at 9600 but the protocol wasn't stated specifically so I am guessing from the pictures.

 

[Jared]

So I'm about to do the same thing. Have a water-damaged board and a donor board. The USB drive was left in the rain. :roll: I had hoped that I could get away with not swapping the IC602, but of course it wouldn't initialize the drive. It did at least spin and move the heads, sounding healthy in the process, confirming my belief that the water never got into the body of the drive. WHEW!

My questions are as follows:

1. How sensitive is that IC602 ROM chip? I am aware that overheating it will kill it, and then it's off to a high-dollar data recovery specialist who can use trial-and-error on the parameters in their $250,000 rig until it hits a set that works. Will simply desoldering one pin at a time with a cooldown between be reasonably safe? I don't have a hot air station, which is what seems to be recommended for this task. I've replaced a lot of capacitors......but they're a lot more forgiving.

2. What are the odds that the water-damaged board would give me a serial ROM dump since it doesn't spin up the drive or get recognized by the USB host? I'm guessing that it won't, but it would be worth a try....maybe? Is that RS232 or TTL? The info I've seen led me to believe that it's just RS232 at 9600 but the protocol wasn't stated specifically so I am guessing from the pictures.

To give a short answer to your questions. The chip can take a fair amount of heat as long as it's not for an extended period of time. The more likely cause of damage in most cases is actually physically damaging the chip from trying to lift it before the solder pads are all fully melted. If I were you I'd practice removing/replacing a ROM chip on another PCB several times before you even think of trying it on your case.

As to what you suggest regarding sending to a professional afterward if you do kill the chip, you can forget about that. The adaptive data stored in the IC602 is irreplaceable. If that chip is ruined, it is game over forever for data recovery. There is no one on earth who can recover a Toshiba when the ROM is gone....NO ONE!!!

I highly doubt a water damaged PCB is going to allow for Terminal reading, and to be honest I wouldn't even know the commands to issue to read the ROM. The guys over a Ace Laboratory obviously figured it out, and they built the solution into PC-3000. Obviously, it is done over TTL, but I don't think many people actually know the command to send to read the ROM.

You could probably read it using an external programmer, but you'd still have to remove it to do that.

 

[SilverPuppy]

Wow. I do not understand why Toshiba made the decision to make their hard drives such unique precious snowflakes that without the adaptive data stored in a flash ROM the thing is altogether helpless. I feel certain that with enough money thrown at it, the data could still be recovered manually, a la FBI recovering data from wiped laptop of that deserter....I forget his name.... Regardless, it seems like a very poor design decision on their part.

But poor design or not, it is what it is. I plan to practice by getting really good at removing and reinstalling IC602 from the donor board on the donor board. As I said, I have done this kind of stuff before, but it was never quite this mission-critical to get it right. Assuming a few remove-reinstalls on the donor board go well, I'll migrate the patient ROM and get their stuff off el-quicko. Not that it really matters on that point; if the drive is working, it should work indefinitely, assuming that the water really didn't get into the body.

As for serial ROM dump, you're correct. The board doesn't even power up. No lights, no host recognition. Bummer.

 

[Jared]

[post]8947[/post] Wow. I do not understand why Toshiba made the decision to make their hard drives such unique precious snowflakes that without the adaptive data stored in a flash ROM the thing is altogether helpless.

Actually, it's the very opposite of what you think. They are all adaptive snowflakes. It's just that most other brands such as WD store a higher percentage of the adaptive information on the platters and read it from there on boot up. Toshiba was the only brand to store 90% of the system code on the PCB (where it's not prone to bad sectors) and it's the reason why Toshiba drives don't suffer from firmware issues like other drives do.

Seagate too is game over if you lose the ROM code on all their modern drives.

[post]8947[/post] I plan to practice by getting really good at removing and reinstalling IC602 from the donor board on the donor board. As I said, I have done this kind of stuff before, but it was never quite this mission-critical to get it right.

The best way to do this is to use a hot air rework station. Set the temp to around 460 degrees C, and wet all 8 contact point with some flux. Keep the airflow relatively low so as not to blow other components off the board. Move the hot air around over the chip in a circular motion. About 10 seconds after you see the flux start to smoke the solder should be loosening up. I prefer not to clamp the PCB down, as I'd prefer it be able to lift up should any leg of the ROM still be attached when I start to pull a bit. The real problems can happen if one of the corner legs is still attached and you pull.

 

[Blizzard]

...and then it's off to a high-dollar data recovery specialist who can use trial-and-error on the parameters in their $250,000 rig until it hits a set that works

Hi SilverPuppy, What $250,000 rig are you referring to?

 

[SilverPuppy]

I guess the days of uniform drive geometry are over, then. At one time the platters were used the same way in every drive in the family, and frankendriving was much easier. Of course, 4TB on one drive was just a pipe dream. Trade-offs have obviously had to be made somewhere.

Thanks for the advice. Also you might be interested to know that one guy figured out how to hook this up to an EEPROM programmer without taking the chip off the board. Makes me wonder if the water damaged board would still allow that.... toshiba-usb-to-sata-guide-t1305-120.html?hilit=programmer#p8871

 

[SilverPuppy]

...and then it's off to a high-dollar data recovery specialist who can use trial-and-error on the parameters in their $250,000 rig until it hits a set that works

Hi SilverPuppy, What $250,000 rig are you referring to?

I'm being a little facetious. Basically I'm referring to the type of rig the FBI uses to scrounge data straight off the platters without the drive firmware being involved at all. I have no idea what it would cost to build/buy such a rig.