Disaster struck about a year ago. I’d been saving iMovie projects to a Western Digital WD3200BEVT 2.5-inch drive of mine when suddenly none of my Macs would recognize the drive anymore. The iMovie files on the drive were collected over several years, with each year representing a fundraising project for my kids’ school. Not wanting to give up on the data, I shelved the drive until this weekend.

A few symptoms I noticed… When a USB to SATA cable was attached to the drive, the drive would spin up, but it was never recognized by the system (System Profiler showed nothing). When a FireWire to SATA cable was attached to the drive, the drive would spin up, but then it would make a clicking noise, spin down, and repeat, all without my Macs recognizing it.

Looking for an easy way out, I contacted Kroll Ontrack, a data recovery specialist here in town. I was quoted $700-1,300 to recover the drive’s contents. I thanked them for their courteous and prompt response, but I decided the data wasn’t worth that much to recover. After reading some information on the web, it appeared this type of drive cannot be repaired by swapping the PCB, so since it was pretty much a lost cause, I decided to take the PCB off the drive and have a look.

On the underside of the PCB, I was able to identify tarnished leads, circled in the photo below. Using my trusty Pentel Clic Eraser (i.e. white eraser), I gently rubbed the tarnished areas. The tarnish came right off and the board was once again shiny.

After reattaching the PCB and plugging the drive in with the USB to SATA cable, the drive mounted with all my data. $1k saved. Sorry Ontrack.