A quick fix for a dead HDD.
A new Samsung HE103UJ 1tB disk drive runs some $240, a great deal more than the $120 I paid for mine, the immediately previous generation HD103UH with the same specs – 32mB cache, 7200 rpm, 3mb/s SATAII data transfer rate. At that replacement cost I reckoned there was no downside to taking it apart and seeing if something obvious was the cause. The drive would not be recognized by OS X’s Finder but would pop up in Disk Utility. However, Disk Utility could neither repair or erase the drive, those options remaining greyed out.
Yes, there are cheaper drives out there, but as a reader commented on yesterday’s column, recent drive failure rates seem to be skyrocketing. The Sammy is a known, high quality drive, mine being 3.5 years old. I own a dozen of these 1tB drives and this is the first to fail. Most have over 3 years’ use, often 7/24.
The controller board on the back of these is retained with five T8 Torx screws and I had it off in a couple of minutes. It makes contact with the drive’s innards in two areas – a multi-contact connector and a two point one – both circled below:
Even to the naked eye it was obvious that the multi-contact connector was heavily oxidized, though there were no signs of heat damage anywhere on the board and the drive neither overheated or made strange noises which would suggest mechanical issues. A couple of seconds cleaning the contacts with my son’s school eraser, the board was replaced and guess what?
Yup, Disk Utility erased and formatted the drive immediately and the Repair function found no errors. The drive also now appeared in Finder.
Sammy must have sold millions of these and they have a deservedly great reputation, so before applying a sledgehammer to your blown one, as long as the heads are not clicking like mad, the bearing is not screaming and it can still be seen in Disk Utility, try this quick fix. I checked a couple of other 3.5″ SATA drives from other makers and the mechanics seem much the same, with the controller board attached with a few screws.