# Repairing dead mobile drive



## wlanboy (Aug 16, 2015)

Today my Freecom mobile drive died. My first thought was that one of the solder points of the mini usb socket broke, but after inspecting it the problem is still not visible.



Opened the cover to find a samsung drive:



And a PCB on the backside:



And there they go - my hope to get access to the sata port:



The drive itself does not make any sound so something broke the circuit.



Finding an 6 year old PCB is not easy - finding the exact same drive too.


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## d2d4j (Aug 16, 2015)

Hi

I hope you don't mind but I read somewhere that it usually is a stuck head on the platter

The fix they suggested was a one off never use again, by opening the drive enclosure and manually gently moving the head, re closure the unit and power on, making sure you have a drive to transfer the data too

I have never tried this though

Good luck

Many thanks

John


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## dcdan (Aug 16, 2015)

1) Do you have a multimeter?

2) Have a look in here:

http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=18292

http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=18075

http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15310


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## Hxxx (Aug 16, 2015)

Really hard to find. Easier to find for the 320GB version.

Closer I found was this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-HM252HX-BF41-00282A-M7S-S_line-rev01/dp/B00BSUC8LU     and is not available. 

Sorry man.


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## willie (Aug 16, 2015)

Those mass market usb external hdd units often use an hdd built for the application, with usb directly on the board and no sata port.  It looks like that's what you have.  Yes, test the usb socket connectivity with a multimeter.  USB connector is the first thing I'd think of.  Micro usb connectors are notoriously flaky, they fail in cell phones all the time, they are surface mounted and peel away from the PCB underneath so you probably wouldn't see the problem by visual inspection.


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## wlanboy (Aug 17, 2015)

dcdan said:


> 1) Do you have a multimeter?
> 
> 2) Have a look in here:
> 
> ...



Thank you for pointing me to the HDD forum. Looks like I have to read a lot of stuff - if I had some spare time left.



willie said:


> Those mass market usb external hdd units often use an hdd built for the application, with usb directly on the board and no sata port.  It looks like that's what you have.  Yes, test the usb socket connectivity with a multimeter.  USB connector is the first thing I'd think of.  Micro usb connectors are notoriously flaky, they fail in cell phones all the time, they are surface mounted and peel away from the PCB underneath so you probably wouldn't see the problem by visual inspection.



You're right - usb data only with some propertery bridge chips.
I will re-solder the usb socket...

Thank you all for the input. There is no dataloss (backups for mobile drives!) but it would have been the perfect drive for my Raspberry Pi 2 (0.85 Amps!).


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## MannDude (Aug 22, 2015)

Did you ever get this resolved @wlanboy?


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## wlanboy (Aug 22, 2015)

MannDude said:


> Did you ever get this resolved @wlanboy?



Nope - drive is not build or sold any longer. Bigger brothers do have other chips on the BPC.


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## pcan (Aug 23, 2015)

If the drive does not power up, the culprit is almost always the "combo" power chip, on this drive is marked TLS2505. It controls the spindle motor, voice coil (VCM), and the two Vcore and Vio buck regulators. The PWM controller, MOSFET chopper, and Schottky diode are inside the package. It does release the MCU reset signal at startup, to start the firmware execution. You will find a datasheet for a similar chip here: http://www.datasheetarchive.com/indexdl/Datasheet-040/DSA0098971.pdf

Also check the USB cable. I presume you already tried another cable, but just in case... I found that microUSB cables  are prone to internal failure.


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