Data Recovery - Hitachi / IBM PCB Controller Board Compatibility information

Swapping controller boards on Hitachi / IBM hard disk drives for data recovery purposes

There are two ways to identify the compatibility of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for these drives.

The first is checking the Machine Level Code (MLC) which can be found on the hard drive label as shown below. However, a matching MLC is not enough; to ensure interchangeability the capacity must also be identical. This is because the configuration information of the read/write heads varies according to the capacity of the drive.

The second way to assess if the PCB is compatible is to check the alphanumeric data on its label (see below). It will be possible to swap the PCB if the top two lines of code are identical.

1. Match the model number and the MLC, or

2. Match the first two lines of alphanumeric data

Links
>> Hard disk drive HDA internal parts compatibility

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