Western Digital HDD With A Broken Connector

[OutlawSkot33]

I have a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive where the USB connector broke on it awhile back. Unfortunately, because it was hard wired into the board, I cant resolder it on. Two different data recovery companies recommended by WD gave an estimate of anywhere between $300-1000 to recover the data. There are other ways to connect to the drive, but I dont know what kind of adapter to use.

Im posting a link to a picture of it so anyone here can help me out and tell me what kind of adapter-to-usb to use so I can pull the data off and put it on a new drive.

Right Here Is The Picture

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm confused. Can't you just use a SATA connector?

 

[BITE_ME]

Take the discs out.
Place in another harddrive.
Porn is now saved

 

[NRG]

How was the external drive's internals connected to the USB cord? I can't tell for sure which bus there is the data bus. I can't tell if the 12 pins in the center are for a USB connector (unlikely because there is one column too many): directly connecting the USB to the drive
OR
was the USB connected to (what looks like a SATA edge connector) on the right side of the green PCB?

 

[BITE_ME]

Sandwich a magnet between your old drive and a new one.
The data will be transferred.

 

[OutlawSkot33]

Take the discs out.
Place in another harddrive.
Porn is now saved

Lol. Sadly though, each disk is paired with the circuit board it came with. I swapped boards between the hdd's, but it would only power it up.

As for the porn, that doesnt concern me I need my pictures and documents.

ANYWAYS

This is what it a good one looks like

The USB jack is unfortunately not only soldered to the board, but its also hard wired into the damn board...

 

[OutlawSkot33]

Ugh if only I knew what the hell kind of adapter to use...

Whats more agravating is the fact it says SATA on the drive, but that is NOT sata....

 

[NRG]

I would imagine if those golden pins on the PCB aren't messed up, you could strip one end of a USB cable of the termination and get the corresponding wires connected/soldered. (Soldering something that close and small is probably impossible with hands though) I don't think there is any adapter that will help you here.

 

[OutlawSkot33]

I figured there isnt a commercial one to help me, im going to shoot WD an email and ask if they can just give me an adapter they use so I can do it..

If I knew the pin out of the cord and corresponding pcb layout, I could do the soldering myself, it would be tedious, but doable. Im an aircraft electrician, soldering is something i do frequently, and I do some pain in the rear work on helicopters.

 

[NRG]

USB pinouts like so can easily be found google images with "usb pinout". Judging by your picture of the working hard drive, it's using a mini-a or micro-b USB connector. I'm sure you can figure out for sure by looking at your USB cable and googling what the hard drive model uses. Then, I'm sure you can match the connector's layout with the layout on the PCB and get soldering.

It's a pain but if you want what's on the hard drive...

 

[DeaJae]

silly question, are you sure that part isn't an adpator board?
Seem a bit odd that a sata drive has been rigged to handle a usb connector (unless its an external sata connector..) straight off the controller board.
Also the black lump of plastic with the 12 pins looks the same size to cover the data and power plug on a normal sata drive.