[fatlip]

Don't worry all, I am still around.

Working on some pics/instructions today.

I just PM'ed everyone that messaged me on the Seagate site and told them to come here.

G

This post has been edited by fatlip: 03 January 2009 - 01:04 PM

[dskbrk]

Hi all,

please check also the barracuda 7200.11 spec docs from seagate.

Take a look at page 32, it says:
"This command controls the implementation of various features that the drive supports. When the drive receives
this command, it sets BSY, checks the contents of the Features register, clears BSY and generates an interrupt."

It talks about the hd "supported ATA commands". No idea of what ata commands are and if this can help. I just hope so.

[timha]

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 09:16 AM, said:

Hi all and especially Fatlip if you are here,

I would really like to know how to build the serial -> SATA interface to connect to the hard disk. I was searching more and more about this and I have found a document which lists down the exact steps/commands to free up the BSY mode. You DO NEED TO DISCONNECT the PCB from HDA before doing it, just as I suspected back in the Seagate forum.

However, I'm not sure if the steps alone will totally free it up or it will leave it detectable by BIOS but with 0 size (the second problem faced by others). If it's the 0 size, then it's something else that we need to search for further, but at least we can unset the BSY mode.

But I need to know how to connect to the SATA interface....

hey poolcarpet,

do you have a link to the document you mentioned ? i too am interested in building the interface and unlocking the bsy.

thanks

[Styleman]

First off - @ fatlip, thanks for the invite to this thread - I can't wait to hear an update from you when you are ready to present your findings.

I think that things will move quickly after this point, although hopefully not too many drives will be lost due to "trial and error" Everyone please remember once fatlip posts his information - the serial controlled terminal window into your HDD is all powerful, and its very easy to mess up any chance of recovering your drive.

Secondly @ poolcarpet, I second the motion. I would also like to see this document you refer to. More importantly, has it been verified or tested?

This post has been edited by Styleman: 03 January 2009 - 05:04 PM

[cengizhan]

There are lots of people waiting for a solution. I hope we have an easy solution for this trouble. And i am very sorry that i have switched from wd to seagate. This shouldnt be happenned.

[Styleman]

I upgraded from my stable 7200.10 Seagate drives to these timebombs.

Thats what I get for being greedy with storage I guess.

cengizhan, on Jan 3 2009, 04:51 PM, said:

There are lots of people waiting for a solution. I hope we have an easy solution for this trouble. And i am very sorry that i have switched from wd to seagate. This shouldnt be happenned.

[seahateHDD]

I got pm on seagate forum from fatlip saying topic is moving here so he knows where it's moved to, guess he is busy and will appear and post sometime I don't want to fiddle too much with drive yet as getting replaced on monday and don't know where that will leave me warranty wise.

A note on data backup seems very relevant. I am sure many know this so sorry for boring you but in case some don't I'm mention it. As for data I triple medium backup (and for years I thought this over cautious hehehehe). Word of advice though, don't trust CDR/DVDR as archive quality method of backup, datacan deteriorate after a year or two. Some brands are worse than others (I've only had probs with certain cdrs personally) but all homemade CDR/DVDR suffer from this due to method of burning the dark spots onto the media (like optical version of magnetic spot binary storage on floppy/cassette tape/ zip/HDD etc) not being as good as commercial process. The domestic method is a laser modified pigment (commercial is usually a physical process to create the dark spots, or it was last time I checked) and contrary to popular belief even expensive/quality brands are not immune (it's the nature of the technology not the quality of it).

That said cheap 'n' nasty brands can lose data intergrity after just a few months. With this in mind check integrity of your cdr/dvdr every 6 months or so and make fresh copy at appropriate intervals, of the most important stuff at least. This isn't a guarantee that all will develop read errors in couple of years, it's just more likely to happen after this time, maybe you'll get lucky and they will still be working in decades. Even in a significantly none fluctuating ambient temp, low humidity, dark environment it can happen but light can speed up pigment breakdown.

For me personally I'd rather be safe understanding that it's possible this can happen and renew disk backups (mainly raw format photos and 3d models and publicity files so it's a lot of data, photos in particular I cannot replace) since it only cost a few £ a year to do this. I also use an old pata WD120Gb drive that I plugin when needed to backup important stuff. I store this in a cupboard in constant suitable environ along with flash cards.I think the most important point is previous poster mentioned "off site" storage, this is very important. You can have a guaranteed 500year life archive with quadruple backups but what good is that when the office or house burns down or floods? Like the saying goes don't put all your eggs in one basket. The Anna Amalia Weimar library springs to mind.

[Zenskas]

Wow I have dragged a lot of new members over here to MSFN hopefully you guys will stay here even after the HDD problem as it's a great forum with quite a few smart people.
So the BSY problem can be fixed then? But it does not fix the problem still? The data recovery companies are charging enough money for their services that you could go out and buy ten drives! (does that sentence make sense??? )
Anyway now we can try to find a solution.

EDIT: Man I wish that AlanM mod on seagate would shut up... this is what he posted in a thread on the seagate forum:
Just for the record, no relevant technical information has been deleted (*yeah right*) or edited out of that thread(*lol*). We are trying to keep the forum interaction professional (*say what?*) and on-topic(*yeah so go and delete posts that are to do with the problem why don't you*), as stated in our Rules & Guidelines(*it does not say mods can delete links to MSFN in the rules*). There is no need to look at any cached version of it (though feel free to do so(*oh I will*)), as the only major action we've undertaken is to close the thread (*and edit posts for no reason*)for the reasons stated in the final post.(*what, the reason was some BS like "ooh everyone is off-topic"*)

This post has been edited by RiderZen: 03 January 2009 - 06:24 PM

[Fuzzy_3D]

Now that we're not under the heel of seagate or the corporate data recovery shills, I think it's time someone re-posted this:
http://members.shaw....000_BSY_Fix.avi

This is the PC3000 seagate BSY fix. I found this on some Russian site through google.
Just so you can see how trivial this fix actually is, if you have the right hardware.

It's encoded in x264, so use VLC if you can't watch it as is.

[fatlip]

Just to be clear here, we don't have a full solution yet. We are 1/2 way I would say.

Anyways; here is your start for what you need to connect to the drive.

Here is the method that I used, which is the easier method.

You need:
1 DB9 Serial cable (1 Male/1 Female ends)

1 Schmartboard Populated RS-232 Adapter

Available here: http://shop1.frys.com/product/4717389 (I found mine at a local electronics shop)
1 bag of SchmartBoard 920-0005-01 3" Jumpers

Available here: http://shop1.frys.com/product/4717419 (I also found these at my local electronic supply shop)
1 Torx T6x2-1/2 screw driver (torx screw size for the PCB board)


The tricky part is getting 5V's to the RS-232 module. I accomplished this by rigging it up from a regular power supply adapter molex connector. The red wire is 5Volts and I used the black wire beside the red for a ground to the Schmartboard.

As you can see on the RS-232 Module - there are 6 clearly labeled pins in the upper right. We only need 4. (3 technically, but I prefer to use a ground).

You need to connect the jumper wires from the Schmartboard:

RD--->TX of the drive
TD--->RX of the drive



At this point you can power the drive up.

This is what it looks like hooked up:

This post has been edited by fatlip: 20 January 2009 - 04:18 PM

[Zenskas]

Thanks fatlip thats great progress!!! So if this works would I be able to buy these parts in Australia? Just at any good electronics store? And do I need a serial port on my PC?

[fatlip]

RiderZen, on Jan 3 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

Thanks fatlip thats great progress!!! So if this works would I be able to buy these parts in Australia? Just at any good electronics store? And do I need a serial port on my PC?

You may need to go to Schmartboard's website to see if they distribute down under.

http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?page...region&dr=5

[seahateHDD]

http://www.active-robots.com/products/acce...s/act-sib.shtml

is this the same board? Only place in UK that I found so far.

[Zenskas]

Since I am getting a replacement drive if it has SD15 firmware would it be possible to update it before it dies?

[seahateHDD]

RiderZen, on Jan 4 2009, 01:08 AM, said:

Since I am getting a replacement drive if it has SD15 firmware would it be possible to update it before it dies?

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. I think the store is going to replace my whole rig which will leave me with same HDD models, and I have to deal with HP personally as for getting the HDDs changed since it was from costco they just distribute them. Obviously if replacement is a pain I don't mind spending a bit to get drives working should they fail again (and again and again hehehe like the antipode of those old 1980s memorex ad claims).

I think I might compose a serious letter (with my tongue firmly in cheek) to seagate with suggestion of marketing the .11 line with "reliably unreliable" ad pitch and the choice of professionals when data integrity means so little. Hehe I always liked that guy who wrote joke letters to companies with such suggestions and compiled them in a book, many not so funny but the "waspard" mustard made from wasp secretions is classic hehehehe.

[CoffeeFiend]

RiderZen, on Jan 3 2009, 04:02 AM, said:

If the moral of the story is true then everyone would have to spend double on storage because thay would have twice the amount of data (back ups).

There is no way around that. Be prepared to lose anything that isn't backed up. It will happen some day. In fact, you could do more than 2 copies (I have 1 copy at home, and another "off-site"). But it's not like you have to backup *everything*. I couldn't care less if I lost my Windows install, VMs I can recreate in mere minutes, and stuff like that, due to a dead drive or whatever. As long as my *important* data is backed up (again, things like family photos -- your kids won't get younger again, no chances to re-take those pics, ever)

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 10:16 AM, said:

I would really like to know how to build the serial -> SATA interface to connect to the hard disk.

It's just a very simple circuit that does level shifting on the serial port (to have "proper" rs232 voltages towards the PC, and TTL level signals towards the drive). It's really nothing special at all: it's a TTL level serial port, like found on almost all embedded controllers (the only "hard" part here, is knowing which pin is TXD/RXD, which is still quite easy). A plan old max232 chip or any equivalent will do, but then again, most serial ports these days will work at TTL levels just fine (still gotta invert it though -- a pair of plain old GP transistors works fine or even a ghetto old 74LS14 or 04, and also clamp the voltage not to fry the drive's controller). You could even make a USB version of it using a FTDI series chip (or any of the other common ones like cypress and others). Or then again, you can buy such pre-built devices from dozens of sites (they're actually very common devices).

Styleman, on Jan 3 2009, 05:24 PM, said:

its very easy to mess up any chance of recovering your drive.

Exactly. The old drive can still be RMA'ed. And removing BSY alone will likely not bring it back to a "functional" state (i.e. in a state where you can recover your data). As the video Fuzzy_3D posted shows, there's quite a bit more to it. A minor screw-up in connections can easily fry the controller or worse (it's simple stuff, but some people shouldn't be near electronics...) And the whole thing still relies on you entering the right commands (which are poorly documented at best) and where any minor mistake may have unfortunate consequences...

Either ways, good luck

[Zenskas]

Lol sounds good
Trouble is I don't have any cash to spend on another HDD unless I get a refund then I can buy a Samsung or WD.

[poolcarpet]

The circuit 1 looks like it's for IDE hard disks. Does it work with SATA?

labraticmp3, on Jan 4 2009, 01:50 AM, said:

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 08:16 AM, said:

Hi all and especially Fatlip if you are here,

I would really like to know how to build the serial -> SATA interface to connect to the hard disk. I was searching more and more about this and I have found a document which lists down the exact steps/commands to free up the BSY mode. You DO NEED TO DISCONNECT the PCB from HDA before doing it, just as I suspected back in the Seagate forum.

However, I'm not sure if the steps alone will totally free it up or it will leave it detectable by BIOS but with 0 size (the second problem faced by others). If it's the 0 size, then it's something else that we need to search for further, but at least we can unset the BSY mode.

But I need to know how to connect to the SATA interface....

If you live near a Frys Electronics you can buy a interface board from them the info needed is in this link Frys Interface Board

I have found two other interface circuits Circut 1 Circut 2

I have connected to my drive with the Frys interface board and was able to see the error code. I was not however able to enter command mode so I was hoping to hear from Fatlip to make sure I was connecting things right.

One other thing the com port setting seem to be 38400,n,8,1

[Zenskas]

I think the best solution for this is seagate calling back the drives or giving out firmware updates so it does not happen in the first place. But noooooo that wouldn't be as good as just RMAing every drive that dies would it seagate?

This post has been edited by RiderZen: 03 January 2009 - 07:36 PM

[seahateHDD]

RiderZen, on Jan 4 2009, 01:23 AM, said:

Lol sounds good
Trouble is I don't have any cash to spend on another HDD unless I get a refund then I can buy a Samsung or WD.

Hmm I don't trust samsung, never used on basis of friends had casualties with them and seeing a high number of "deaths" on boards compared to other brands (death of HDD not the owners), higher rate than some others anyway. All manufacturers have some issue though. I always use WD in selfbuilds and always have. Not many have died before time (often going strong past expected life) but some WD are unacceptably short lived due to design. If you do, go with good model (goes without saying I know). I personally like the blacks but some of the others are ok. Still WD are not without issue either and have had fair share of problem (with interface board issues and so on) but IMO a safer bet than samsung.

Unfortunately it's the nature of the technology, it seems to get less reliable over time too because bigger storage space means compromise in many areas. Obviously enterprise drives tend to be better but they also cost more and for many it might not be worth it.

This post has been edited by seahateHDD: 03 January 2009 - 07:49 PM