I had a few WD drives that failed. One was a backup that wasn't used much and another was regularly used.
I took the circuit boards off both and noticed many of the exposed pads and connector pads are all corroded more or less. It doesn't look like black pad but like some oxide. Some of the larger pads are not fully corroded but as if they are being "Eaten"(although it is a smooth variation).
I'm not sure if these are the causes of the failure but definitely seems to be rather cheap electroplating. I've tried swapping two of the circuits boards from two almost identical drives with no success although one of the drives is totally dead(it seems as I can't even get the bios to recognize it). It seems like it might be the circuit board since I've had the same problem when I changed drives but kept the same circuit board.
Anyone have any working identical drives willing to swap the circuit boards to see if that concept works(it should as these things are mass produced)? Then swap a working drive's circuit board with a failed drive's one and see if the drive ends of working?