Kricket

Hello! I created this account just to say: THANK YOU. I had the BSY error and following the instructions here (and other places around the 'net) I managed to save it. I also wanted to give a rundown of what I ended up doing, in the event that it might help somebody out there. I have a Maxtor Diamondback 22, firmware MX-15, hooked up to an Asus P5Q-E mobo. A week ago, when I started the computer, it would hang for ~30sec before even going to the BIOS splash screen; hang there for another ~30sec longer than normal; then finally get around to telling me that it couldn't find an OS. Going into BIOS setup revealed no drives detected on the SATA bus. I had a hell of a time trying to find the RS232-TTL connection. After scrounging all the local electronics stores and coming up empty, what I ended up doing was going to the shady stores that promise to unlock your cellphone. One of them had a DKU-5 cable that I bought for 10€. I chopped the cable in half and stripped it to find that it only had 3 wires in the middle - red, blue, and orange. WTF!? Probably some crappy offshoot from Hong Kong. Long story short, the lesson I learned was: - I didn't need to saw apart the USB end of the cable (I did, but it didn't help much, since the labels were numbers and I couldn't find a schematic online) - it turned out that the orange was ground, Red=Rx, Blue=Tx - TEST! I plugged it in, fired up the terminal, and go no echo...then touched the red and blue together...got echo...whee! I found out on a French forum that the DKU-5 and CA-42 are very similar (the previous is perhaps USB1? but it got the job done). But DON'T buy the DKE-2, or the other CA- cable, because they're basically just USB extension cords (the end of the cables look roughly the same for the ones that work, and not at all like the ones that don't). I would assume that you could do this with other cellphones, as I'm sure Nokia isn't the only company out there to do this, but it's up to you to hit Google and figure out what will work. While I'm on the terminal, I'll mention that (yes I know this is a M$ forum) I'm a linux user (one of the OSs that doesn't even exist when this forum asks you which one you use). Since I only have one HD on this machine (soon to change!), I booted up with an Ubuntu live CD (that alone is 100x more useful than any windoze CD I've ever had) and installed minicom (sudo apt-get install minicom). After plugging in the DKU5, typing "dmesg" informed me that it recognized the cable and connected it to /dev/ttyUSB0. "minicom -s" to configure, and I was good to go. Taking off the PCB and sticking a folded sheet of paper over the motor contact was straightforward enough. I hot-plugged the drive (scary! but unf. a necessary evil, as I don't have a better way to switch its power on-off) and followed the instructions on the terminal. When you get to the part where you slide the paper out, you need to put the screw back in - that's the part that makes the magic contact. Once you get it running, just go to www.maxtor.com (or seagate) and find the firmware update - it's easy enough to locate. For me, it was MX1A. Hopefully by now they've worked out the kinks and I won't be using this drive to build any houses... All told, I did it with 10€, a torx T6, some rudimentary tools to strip the wires, electrical tape, and a handy linux live CD. No need to even use a second computer. Again, thanks to all the people out there who have posted in various forums with info/advice on how to do this. Also check out the video sites, as there's several videos illustrating what to do.