WD10EZEX-75M2NA0 Preamp Ribbon Cable Burnt INSIDE HDD

[murphman]

Hello,

Just wanted to share and also see if anyone else has ever seen anything like this.. I have been doing data recovery for over 15 years and I have NEVER seen a failure like this...

Customer brought in WD10EZEX-75M2NA0 from a DELL Server. Claims they got a new PC and their IT person was transferring the data over. The transfer was going good and then out of nowhere (around 20%ish into the transfer) the drive just stopped working.

The drive owner wasn't present when this happen and this is all according to the IT guy (who could be lying).

When the customer brought in the drive, he said the IT guy tried swapping the PCB on the drive but it didn't work.

As you can see from the picture (attached) the ribbon cable on the head assembly is BURNT. There is residue (blackish dust) all over the platters and the air filter is dirty. The platters don't look damaged so it must be from the ribbon cable; it must have literary caught on fire and burnt!!!

How the hell does something like this happen!? Only thing I can think of is that the IT guy put on a wrong PCB but even then how would that cause the ribbon cable inside the drive to burn!? it doesnt make any sense to me... any ideas?

[k4z1]

A month ago I've had the same case. It had a damaged PCB also, but not any kind of user actions AFAIK.
So it could be short circuit in preamp or some kind of issue with PWM controller.
Drive was WD10EZEX-19ZF5A0.