[xoncegame]

hi,
i join rx, tx from my serial port on mainboard directly to hdd and connect sata power,
run hyperterminal with those setting, ctrl+z, but show an arrow instead of F3 T>
what,s problem?

This post has been edited by xoncegame: 05 April 2009 - 04:15 PM

[ElectroGeeza]

xoncegame, on Apr 6 2009, 12:05 AM, said:

hi,
i join rx, tx from my serial port on mainboard directly to hdd and connect sata power,
run hyperterminal with those setting, ctrl+z, but show an arrow instead of F3 T>
what,s problem?

• What?... what do you mean by serial port?... you mean the legacy serial port (SR232) or serial ATA port (S-ATA)? Actually it doesn't matter which one you mean, I don't think that's the way you're suppose to do it. You can't connect neither the SR232 nor the S-ATA directly to the RX and TX on the HDD, especially not the S-ATA. You have to connect the RX and TX of the HDD to a standard SR232 serial port on the PC, so that's correct, but you can't connect them "directly" they still have to pass through a TTL to/from SR232 adapter. I don't see you mentioning that you have this one, you just state that you connected it directly and that won't work. You may even damage your disk drive that way permanently. You need to have the SR232 to/from TTL adapter which is a crucial part of this whole assembly.
  
  
  
• When exactly do you connect S-ATA power?... before running the HyperTerminal?... I have not done this yet on my drive but as I understand it you will have to connect the TX and RX from the HDD to a SR232-TTL adapter first and then enter HyperTerminal and press CTRL+Z, before connecting the S-ATA (Molex 12V) power connector to the HDD.
  
  
  
• The problem is that you are not doing this the right way, I'm afraid. And if I'm not mistaken, you were supposed to un-screw one or two of the Torx 6 (T6) screws to release the PCB from the HDA housing and put an isolating material like plastic in-between in order to disconnect the disk motor from the PCB, before even connecting the TX and RX from the HDD to the RS232-TTL adapter and entering HyperTerminal, and pressing CTRL+Z. Then after pressing CTRL+Z, and getting the F3 T> prompt, and writing /2 to enter the Level 2, you would write Z and press Enter to slow down the motor. Then with the S-ATA power connected you would remove the plastic (or other) isolator between the PCB and HDA to make contact with the motor and screw the PCB back in place, and then speed up the motor by writing U and pressing Enter.
  
  
  
• Also, did you make sure you have powered the SR232-TTL adaptor? You have to power this one as well, preferably with a CR2032 battery. It won't work otherwise.

I'm not 100% sure about the whole procedure... yet... and I have not done this yet on my own disk drive. If I understand it correctly you need to write Z at Level2 "to slow down the motor" even thou the motor isn't actually running yet since the S-ATA (Molex 12V) power connector isn't connected yet. The purpose of this step or instruction I think is to preparing the HDD motor for a slow or easy start, so that when you do connect the S-ATA (Molex 12V) power connector to power the motor it won't start at a high speed. Then after connecting the power to it, you speed it up with the U command.

Could anyone verify this? Am I giving out false information?... I would have use of it as well, so don't hasitate to verify these claims or correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks in advance!

This post has been edited by ElectroGeeza: 05 April 2009 - 05:21 PM

[jaclaz]

ElectroGeeza, on Apr 5 2009, 10:04 PM, said:

If you by easiness of use mean the message I was getting when starting PartitionMagic for the first time, then I'm sure a smart software shouldn't behave this way prompting the user to take action on this matter if it's something critical by which the partition table may be destroyed. Instead of that, the software should let the more advanced user be able to perform these tasks by starting the operation manually once they enter the software. Or perhaps if the advanced user wants to be prompted with this kind of thing when starting the software like this, then he should be able to set that up in the settings, where the default setting is NOT to prompt these questions. That's the way I would have designed it at least. From my experience I know that the less settings and things you mess with in a software the least are the chances you destroy or mess up something badly, and some software are too intrusive (don't know a better word for it) by both having too many options available as default and asking too many questions and things like that. I'm sure it's appreciated by advanced users or users familiar with the particular software, but for a novice it's just too much.

Last Out of Topic reply, I swear.

ANY partition manipulating utility, is "risky" business, "advanced users" would use "advanced tools" (NOT Partition Magic, NOT Acronis) to directly check and edit the data if needed, and in any case "advanced users" know that before even thinking of messing with partitions a full image of the drive is needed, as Murphy's Law is ALWAYS around to try and prove itself right once again.

A well designed software, as I see it, should have an aggressive interface , ideally it would simply shout at you "ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU DON'T HAVE A WAY BACK" and SLAP you on the face.

Those softwares are very powerful weapons put lightly in the hands of "average users" or "novices" not trained/knowledgeable enough about the possibility that something can go wrong.

When they work they are great, when they don't "average user" is unprepared to the resulting disaster.

jaclaz

[cl00m]

Hello

I have tried your solution with a max3232 converter and serial cable in com1, I have connected rx tx to the hdd pins, v+ and gnd, v+ on orange or red (same results) wire of a power unit, and gnd on black wire of power unit.

The D1 led is blinking, but CTRL Z doesnt work, my hard drive (maxtor diamondmax 22 mx15) is in BSY and doesnt answer, I have removed a screw to put a paper thing onto the motor. But no more answer from hyperterminal.



Perhaps I have to connect rx2 and tx2 whereas rx and tx ?

Thx

PS : sorry for the bad photo, its from my htc, and sorry for my bad english, im french !

This post has been edited by cl00m: 06 April 2009 - 08:43 AM

[pichi]

cl00m, on Apr 6 2009, 04:41 PM, said:

...
I have tried your solution with a max3232 converter and serial cable in com1, I have connected rx tx to the hdd pins, v+ and gnd, v+ on orange or red (same results) wire of a power unit, and gnd on black wire of power unit.
...
Perhaps I have to connect rx2 and tx2 whereas rx and tx ?
...

You try first connect GND to HDD too, the third pin of the jumper's connector (NC - GND - TX - RX)
If this doesn't work try rx2 and tx2, with gnd too.

This post has been edited by pichi: 06 April 2009 - 09:43 AM

[ElectroGeeza]

jaclaz, on Apr 6 2009, 01:34 PM, said:

Last Out of Topic reply, I swear.

ANY partition manipulating utility, is "risky" business, "advanced users" would use "advanced tools" (NOT Partition Magic, NOT Acronis) to directly check and edit the data if needed, and in any case "advanced users" know that before even thinking of messing with partitions a full image of the drive is needed, as Murphy's Law is ALWAYS around to try and prove itself right once again.

A well designed software, as I see it, should have an aggressive interface , ideally it would simply shout at you "ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU DON'T HAVE A WAY BACK" and SLAP you on the face.

Those softwares are very powerful weapons put lightly in the hands of "average users" or "novices" not trained/knowledgeable enough about the possibility that something can go wrong.

When they work they are great, when they don't "average user" is unprepared to the resulting disaster.

jaclaz

I couldn't agree more, this discussion is going a way off topic, and as such it doesn't help users much with the initial problem with the Seagate disk drives.

I wouldn't say that it's totally unrelated, partitioning, formatting, changing disk geometry, checking for errors or any such task is absolutely related with hard disk drives. These are usually the software tools used for maintaining, administrating and or solving disk drive related problems. So it's not like we're discussing Diesel engines or Rocket science here, this discussion is absolutely related to this topic, but we've moved the focus a bit too far away from the initial problem of this topic.

Could we go back to the original problem now? But before we do that, here is how I think we can summarize this spin-off discussion.

• Using disk partition manipulation utilities is a tricky business. I agree on that.
  
  
  
• The firmware of a device such as the hard disk drive (HDD) is a microcode which is stored on a reserved memory on a EEPROM, EPROM or PROM chip in the device itself, while the partition-information of a disk drive is stored on the disk platters. Therefore, changes made to the disk partitions can not affect the firmware.
  
  
  
• The statement that "what you did at software level carries NO CONSEQUENCES whatever at firmware one" does not hold true. I am assuming that what you were probably trying to say is what I said above - changes made to the disk partitions can not affect the firmware - but your expressed it in a wrong way. It's wrong because the use of computer software (software level or software layer) can and will have consequences for the firmware if designed so.
  
  For a relevant comparison, take the following in consideration. After the reports of bad firmware on the Barracuda family disk drives came in to Seagate, they have designed a new firmware or re-designed the bad firmware to address the problems in it. In order to allow the end-users to deploy the new firmware to their disk drives, Seagate have also designed a special software for making this possible, which, once executed, would re-program the ROM chip of the disk drive with the new firmware. If that's not a direct consequence of using software to manipulate firmware, then I don't know what is.
  
  But then again, using a partition manipulation software utility such as Acronis Disk Director or PartitionMagic will not or should not be expected to have this kind of consequences, but that's just logic or even common sense if you will, since it's not designed to perform such operation then it will not do it.
  
  So what I'm saying here is that it's not using "software" per say that don't have any consequence for a "firmware" of any device actually and not just HDDs, but it's using exactly that kind of software application - partition manipulation software utility, better known as "Logical volume management software" - that will not have or should be expected to have consequences/affect on the firmware since it's not their primary application or aim of use.
  
  
  
• Since computer software as such can and will have consequences for or affect on the firmware of a device if designed so (as explained above), then there is a potential risk that the software you use or misuse may lead to an unintentional affect or consequence on the firmware, even when the software is not originally designed to do such thing. This may happen out of several reasons, but there are at least there reasons that come to my mind. At first, this may happen because the software includes functionalities which the operator is not aware in combination with the operator not being educated enough for the use of that software, the second would be that the particular functionality in question which triggers the potential disaster is not documented in the documentation of the software, and the third would be that the software has a bug in it which the software designers were unaware of.
  
  
  
• It's most probable that it's exactly this third scenario that took place with those bad firmwares of the Seagate Barracuda disk drives. It's not the use or misuse of computer software, it's the bugs in these that are the most common reason for failure of the software, the firmware, and in some cases (like this Seagate Barracuda case) even the hardware, in modern day computer world. Common computer user, and even the ones who brag to be advanced users or experts in the field, don't always seem to grasp the complexity of a computer system. Just to illustrate it: modern day PC computers are pure super computers of the past two decades, and this gap is reducing as the technological advancements move forward. And yes, it's in accordance with, not the Murphy's but the Moore's law! Murphy's law is just a joke! "Moore's law is a violation of Murphy's law. Everything gets better and better." So people don't seem to grasp the power and the complexity of a PC computer which is by far the most common type of computer today, so common that it's synonymous with "computer". And when you have one of these babies at your hands, things are not going to be either black or white, so there is plenty of reasons to fear that the use of a Logical volume management software can directly or in-directly affect the firmware of a HDD.
  
  
  
• In the end, I don't think that one should be somehow afraid of this little monster. Users should be encouraged to widely use and experiment a lot with their computers. I'm sure that those of us who have had this problem with Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 disk drives, and who have solved the problem by following the instructions in this thread have felt great satisfaction for succeeding with this pursuit. That's how you learn things - by experimenting and experience - you experiment a lot, and those times when you fail or destroy something you learn from it and you take that with you as a great experience for the future. Any experiment comes with risks, so you should always be prepared for the worst, so having a reserve plan is not a question of if. The great lesson from this particular problem should be backup!

Ease of use of computer software
I don't agree with you Jaclaz on that a well designed software should have an "aggressive" interface as you put it. But I can somewhat agree on that it should be at least somewhat "smart" to warn you or inform you that the action you are about to take is risky or can disable other options and so on. I also like confirmation dialogs, that's should be an important feature of any well designed software, but it shouldn't be over-used of course. But these things may just be a matter of personal opinions and preference, but I have a strong feeling that (probably as a result of the reports I've read in the past) an simple and clean interface is to prefer and can scientifically be easier to prove to be more effective and easier to use. Usability of any tool or software interface in this case is first and far most defined by the level of complexity, and secondly by the ergonomic factors which don't apply much to computer software as to other designed objects. These aspects of computer software are subject of study actually in the field of HCI (Human-Computer-Interaction). There are plenty of studies on this subject you can read.

As a last thing I want to say the following. The introduction of the graphical user interface is by far the biggest achievement on this matter, and no one can argue that command line interfaces are easier to use than the their graphical user interface counterparts. Command line may be faster, and thus more effective to use in some situations than the graphical ones, but they can never compete with graphical user interfaces when it comes to ease of use. Why do I even have to point this out to you??! Just look through this thread and you can read that several users who find the command line instructions of this tutorial difficult suggest that someone makes a small software application with a graphical interface that would perform the needed commands "behind the scene" so to speak without the user having to worry about using the correct command and in the correct way. If that's not at least a good indication if not a prove that users prefer simple and clean user interfaces, then I don't know what is.

[cl00m]

Ok thx pichi I'll try that tomorrow, but I have to connect GND on the converter AND on the hdd ? That's right ?

[pichi]

cl00m, on Apr 6 2009, 07:45 PM, said:

Ok thx pichi I'll try that tomorrow, but I have to connect GND on the converter AND on the hdd ? That's right ?

GND on the converter AND on the hdd too.

[probus]

Hi there, well after getting all hardware to do this job I started to work on it, when my hard disk (seagate barracuda 1tb) is conected normally (with pcb on it) I can see on hyperterminal these: LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051, so far I'm ok, the problem begins when I put the card between the head contacts and the pcb, after remove pcb, place the card between, and place the screws, I connect the TX and RX ports to my hard drive, the 3v battery I'm using and put the power (from my pc) to the SATA hard drive, run hyperterminal, press CTRL+Z and it says connected but anything happens, hit again CTRL+Z and nothing happens, never happens anything with the card placed behind the pcb, I've checked the TX and RX and there are just fine... I'm kind of lost... I'm desperate, I need HELP please!!!

[pichi]

probus, on Apr 7 2009, 08:39 AM, said:

Hi there, well after getting all hardware to do this job I started to work on it, when my hard disk (seagate barracuda 1tb) is conected normally (with pcb on it) I can see on hyperterminal these: LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051, so far I'm ok, the problem begins when I put the card between the head contacts and the pcb, after remove pcb, place the card between, and place the screws, I connect the TX and RX ports to my hard drive, the 3v battery I'm using and put the power (from my pc) to the SATA hard drive, run hyperterminal, press CTRL+Z and it says connected but anything happens, hit again CTRL+Z and nothing happens, never happens anything with the card placed behind the pcb, I've checked the TX and RX and there are just fine... I'm kind of lost... I'm desperate, I need HELP please!!!

LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051 isn't bad.
This message is because you have BSY problem.
You need connect negative terminal from the battery or adaptor to GND of the hdd (the third pin of jumper's connector, near of TX).
You unmount the PCB and you do the BSY reparation procedure.

[probus]

pichi, on Apr 7 2009, 01:42 AM, said:

probus, on Apr 7 2009, 08:39 AM, said:

Hi there, well after getting all hardware to do this job I started to work on it, when my hard disk (seagate barracuda 1tb) is conected normally (with pcb on it) I can see on hyperterminal these: LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051, so far I'm ok, the problem begins when I put the card between the head contacts and the pcb, after remove pcb, place the card between, and place the screws, I connect the TX and RX ports to my hard drive, the 3v battery I'm using and put the power (from my pc) to the SATA hard drive, run hyperterminal, press CTRL+Z and it says connected but anything happens, hit again CTRL+Z and nothing happens, never happens anything with the card placed behind the pcb, I've checked the TX and RX and there are just fine... I'm kind of lost... I'm desperate, I need HELP please!!!

LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051 isn't bad.
This message is because you have BSY problem.
You need connect negative terminal from the battery or adaptor to GND of the hdd (the third pin of jumper's connector, near of TX).
You unmount the PCB and you do the BSY reparation procedure.

Hi pichi thanks for fas response, I've just do what you tell me, here's my conection, hope I can explain it well Adapter TD to TX seagate
Adapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure:
1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter
2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate
3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc
4.- Run hyperterm
5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK
6.- in the left down corner it says : connected
7.- hit CTRL+Z
8.- Nothing happens
It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

[pichi]

probus, on Apr 7 2009, 10:06 AM, said:

...
Adapter TD to TX seagate
Adapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure:
1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter
2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate
3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc
4.- Run hyperterm
5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK
6.- in the left down corner it says : connected
7.- hit CTRL+Z
8.- Nothing happens
It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

On HDD:
pin 1 (RX hdd) <--- TX Adapter
pin 2 (TX hdd) ---> RX Adapter
pin 3 (GND hdd) <---> GND Adapter
pin 4 (N.C. hdd)

[cl00m]

I've connected hdd GND pin to black wire of power unit, and GND on the converter with another black wire ... I've tried with tx rx, and tx2 rx2, in hyperterme that says connected but CTRL Z doesnt answer ... I have put a paper card on the 3 pins of the motor behind the board of the hdd. But nothing happens.

The exact image of my converter :



When do I have to power on the HDD ? After power on max3232 converter so before going in hyperterminal, when exactly ?

This post has been edited by cl00m: 07 April 2009 - 06:08 AM

[thesatch22]

Hi every one,

I double check even triple check the connections , but still, the promp "F3" does not appears....
just a black arrow like this on the picture below

does any body had this before?
how could I fix it?

Attached File(s)

•  arro.JPG (40.72K)
  Number of downloads: 19

[cl00m]

YES IT WORKS !!! I had to connect a 5V wire and flip tx and rx ! And of course I had to power on sata connector during the hyperterminal CTRL Z, that I hadn't understood !

I've worked so hard that I have made photos ! Here is my resolution :

For MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX 22 (SN STM3500320AS) with MX15 Firmware

First of all : With MAX3232 adapter You have to connect RX to RX and TX to TX !!

Hardware used :

. standard PC with one serial connector (com1)
. rs232 cord
. max3232 adapter (rs232 to ttl)

. ATX PC Power Unit
. Sata Power cable from another open PC

The photos

This photo shows my assembly with ATX pc power unit :


To make this ATX power unit works only when I connect a power cord, you have to shunt 2 wires of the ATX motherboard connector :


The max3232 assembly :


The final assembly with HDD :


For HDD pins, you can use a wire from jumper from a pc motherboard (like the ones for switchs and leds) and flatten it with a plier, then it's solid to connect to :



Summary

. Connect rs232 cord to your pc and to MAX3232 adapter
. Connect red wire and black wire from atx power unit to V+ and GND on max3232 adapter
. Connect TX max3232 to TX hdd pin
. Connect RX max3232 to RX hdd pin
. Connect power sata connector
. Put a paper card (or other) onto 3 pins motor hdd but behind hdd board (between), you have to pull off a screw to do that (the nearest from the motor)
. Power on ATX power unit with a power cord, the d1 led of the max3232 blinking
. Launch hyperterminal, set it, connect it
. Power on the second PC where power sata on the hdd is connected to
. Type CTRL Z and so the commands listed there : http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...8807&st=100
. When finished and HDD works, you have to flash your bugged firmware with a newer, I have used this one : link to the firmware iso from seagate, its a bootable iso !

That should work, I hope ... For me It worked !!! Thx Gradius, you rox !!

What a lovely screenshot !! :

This post has been edited by cl00m: 07 April 2009 - 09:52 AM

[pichi]

thesatch22, on Apr 7 2009, 11:21 AM, said:

Hi every one,

I double check even triple check the connections , but still, the promp "F3" does not appears....
just a black arrow like this on the picture below

does any body had this before?
how could I fix it?

Black arrow is the symbol of Ctrl+z.
Your RX and TX wires are joined. You have to separate them.

This post has been edited by pichi: 07 April 2009 - 04:18 PM

[probus]

pichi, on Apr 7 2009, 02:15 AM, said:

probus, on Apr 7 2009, 10:06 AM, said:

...
Adapter TD to TX seagate
Adapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure:
1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter
2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate
3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc
4.- Run hyperterm
5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK
6.- in the left down corner it says : connected
7.- hit CTRL+Z
8.- Nothing happens
It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

On HDD:
pin 1 (RX hdd) <--- TX Adapter
pin 2 (TX hdd) ---> RX Adapter
pin 3 (GND hdd) <---> GND Adapter
pin 4 (N.C. hdd)

Ok Advancing on my work... F3 T> just apear tonight
then I hit /2 and give me F3 2>
but when I type Z it send me this : LED:0000000CE FAddr:0025CBC3 twice and then no more F3/2> sign.... now, whats wrong?
thanks.....

[Kaidiir]

Greetings fellow Seagate drive victims


I had a 7200.11 die on me last Monday and managed to get it un-bricked (from BSY state) last night, after following the excellent help and advice on this forum. IMHO, someone better have gotten fired from Seagate for this FUBAR of a situation. Allowing a bug like this to ship in millions of drives worldwide is absolutely unacceptable.

Anyways, for what it's worth, I figured I'd detail what I did to get my drive working again. The drive in question shipped with a Dell XPS 730x system that I bought in January. Wonderful machine, zero problems whatsoever until one morning I started it up and received a "insert boot media or specify boot media location" BIOS message. Thank the gods I had a backup drive. There's actually a somewhat devastating bug in Windows XP (haven't looked for it in Vista) where data stores created by the Files and Settings Transfer wizard can become easily corrupted, thus trapping the data inside them. I learned my data-loss lesson and to this date never run without AT LEAST one backup at any given time.

In a panic, I ordered a worked for him: FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable (USB on one end, 6 colored wires on the other end). After hours of tinkering with it with no success, I sped off to a local electronics store and bought a USB-->Serial cable and a Serial-->TTY adapter. Fast forward a couple of days and several more hours of messing with it, and the only thing I managed to do was somehow cause a hard reset in my power supply, scaring the hell out of me.

I was at a loss. So I started reading through this entire thread again, looking for anything obvious I missed. On page 35, I came across the following post from AlexLilic:

AlexLilic, on Feb 7 2009, 07:13 PM, said:

WOOHOOO!! I just successfully unbricked my drive by following the instructions from this thread. All of my data is accessible again (and now safely copied to a new drive).

Let me just extend a heartfelt "thanks" to the people who contributed to this happy day!!!! Over the past months I have read posts from Gustek, Fatlip, Gradius, Aviko (and of course others). In actual fact I am really glad for the timing of my fault - because it let me share this journey with them by reading their posts as the solution unfolded.

The funny thing is that if the DR companies had just been transparent about what they do, and charged a little less for this fix, I would have used them weeks ago. I called 2 local DR companies and asked "how much *IF* it turns out to be the well known 7200.11 SD15 BSY error?". If they had been transparent and said "Quick fix - but we still need 300 Euros to cover our overhead" I would have said "fine" and given them the disk. Instead they they basically said "How much is your data worth so that I know how much to charge you?" (i.e. quoted 600-900 Euros). As a result they didn't get my business, and I suspect they won't get many others. When I finally got a working TTL adapter (thanks Alexx86) the solution indeed took 3 minutes.

Because I had many difficulties with my first adapter - I have included my tips here:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - Buy an adapter which you KNOW works and is EASY! (Easier == less steps == less risk)
The first adapter I purchased was a USB Signal to RS232 TTL UART
Despite a LOT of effort, I could NOT get a terminal session established with the drive. I tried all suggestions (grounding, different power supplies, with and without PCB connection, etc.)
Shorting TXD and RXD (loopback test) worked so I knew the UART was not faulty - but connecting to the Seagate PCB gave nothing other than the "Arrow" in Hyperterminal. A further problem occurred because i didn't realise that for my chip, VCC on the TTL output was connected to 5v, so when I connected my 3v batteries to it they were "charged" by the UART chip and literally popped whilst connected to the drive (at this point I was sure it was game over :-))


2 - Keep it Simple
I decided to try one last time with a known adapter. I contacted a local poster in this thread (alexx86) who confirmed for me that this part number had worked for him: FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable


This adapter rocked - it was soooo easy by comparison:
- No guesswork. Good documentation. Good drivers.
- It is USB, so no RS232 port required.
- It came with drivers for XP, Vista, etc. - but I didn't need them (just "plug and play" on my machine)
- There was no need for additional battery power supply. The cable includes a 3.3v VCC already.

3 - Connecting it (these steps thanks to Alexx86)
Connect a Standard SATA power cable to the drive, and then connect the USB<->TTL cable as described below. Note that there was no need to ground between the USB<->TTL cable and the SATA cable (i.e. they are seperate). I did however connect 3 USB<->TTL wires to the drive PCB (3rd one being GND) and I used the same PC to provide both SATA power and USB<->TTL cable).

This USB<->TTL cable has 6 wires. Only 3 are connected to the Seagate PCB. Of the remaining 3 wires, 2 are joined together and the final one is unused.
USB<->TLL Cable Connections:
- Orange (TXD) - Connected to 1st terminal pin on PCB (closest pin to SATA adapter)
- Yellow (RXD) - Connected to 2nd terminal pin on PCB (2nd closest pin to SATA adapter)
- Black (GND) - Connected to 3rd terminal pin on PCB (3rd closest pin to SATA adapter).
- Brown (CTS) and Green (RTS) are tied to each other and nothing else (for flow control). I would have thought this was unnecessary - but I did it to be sure.
- Red Wire (VCC) is not used.

4 - Fix your drive
Open Hypterm and Ctrl-Z to confirm you have connection. Then follow the commands from Gradius/Aviko. I had trouble deciding whether to follow Gradius or Aviko's solution. I felt loyal to Gradius, and found his instructions more readable - but some of Aviko's advice was also clearly valuable.

In the end I mixed a little. I used 2 pieces of paper card to isolate both the Motor connector (3 pin connection) and HDMA contacts (IC-style connection) and started with Gradius' approach. As I have a 500gb Seagate however, I couldn't resist trying the F712 commands that Aviko mentioned which are only apply to my drive (see post #610). Therefore I ended up not using the Glist Erase command ("F3 T>i4,1,22 (enter)").

My summary is that Aviko's advice is clearly knowledgable and he has added additional value to Gradius' excellent solution thread (note that I did not say it was Gradius solution - but it IS Gradius' thread, so please don't point out that someone else created the solution first). Without Gradius however, most of us would not have our data - me included!

Gradius and Aviko - thankyou BOTH so VERY much!!!!

Within MINUTES, I was at that magical F3 prompt in HyperTerminal, and within a few more minutes my drive was fully functional again! In my experience, using the direct USB-->TTY cable was a lot simpler than assembling a connector from a serial cable (USB-->Serial adapter for many people probably, as few computers these days have a serial port on the mobo). To any and all who come across this thread and this post, I would highly recommend the USB-->TTY cable. I purchased the jumper wires from the first post of this thread for $5, and the cable for $20. Yes, it's more money than the other solution, but I personally am willing to spend a few extra bucks if it means less headache and getting my drive back and working.
I'd like to give my thanks to all the people who invested so much time and effort into this solution. I'm going to try to get the word out to everyone I know about the 7200.11 drives, hopefully I'll be able to prevent more people having to go through this whole ordeal.

As an amusing fact, I live about 5 miles from Seagate's customer service facility in Scotts Valley, California, USA (listed as so on their support website). Getting this drive fixed means I don't have to go up there with eggs and TP...

[diw4321]

My two cents.

Same problem with Seagate ST3750330AS, dead to the world.

I also didn't realize I had to power the drive while working with the board, but in retrospect...duh!

I found a vendor in Canada for the part.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/MAX232-RS232-TTL-Conver...0312128001r2151

Their ebay page has the settings for the jumpers. I used the Null modem setting.

I had a couple issues/points I'd like to share.
I used a USB hub for my power source for this board, I figured if I messed up, all I would blow up is the USB hub. I grabbed a USB cable, cut off the end, found 5V+ and 5V- and attached them to the MAX232. Worked great as any other voltage would not power up the MAX232.
I also had to add a ground from the MAX232 GND to the next pin on the HD (right beside TX). Without it, I was only getting garbage out of the HD. I saw a couple of people post that, easy enough to do since I used a breadboard for my wiring.

After all that, it worked great.

Godd luck

[probus]

probus, on Apr 8 2009, 01:13 AM, said:

pichi, on Apr 7 2009, 02:15 AM, said:

probus, on Apr 7 2009, 10:06 AM, said:

...
Adapter TD to TX seagate
Adapter RD to RX seagate, +5v adapter to Positive 3v battery, GDN adapter to Negative side of 3v battery, Negative from 3v battery to third pin of jumper's connectos seagate, SATA power conected directly from my PC. My procedure:
1.- connect TD, RD, GND and +5v to adapter
2.-Connect TX,RX and ground to seagate
3.-Connect SATA power directo from my pc
4.- Run hyperterm
5.- new connection, com5, 38400, 8, none, 1 ,none hit OK
6.- in the left down corner it says : connected
7.- hit CTRL+Z
8.- Nothing happens
It's 2:05 am here, I have near 2 weeks with this problem, all my work is on that seagate... thanks for your time and quick response

On HDD:
pin 1 (RX hdd) <--- TX Adapter
pin 2 (TX hdd) ---> RX Adapter
pin 3 (GND hdd) <---> GND Adapter
pin 4 (N.C. hdd)

Well finally today in the morning my disk drive war RECOVERED!!!!! thanks a lot to everybody who post, answer and work on this project, because you made it possible! Thanks Pichi all your help, I recovered my disk drive 1tb and make the firmware actualization, hope with that I don't have any problems....
THANKS A LOT AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU!!!

Ok Advancing on my work... F3 T> just apear tonight
then I hit /2 and give me F3 2>
but when I type Z it send me this : LED:0000000CE FAddr:0025CBC3 twice and then no more F3/2> sign.... now, whats wrong?
thanks.....