[jaclaz]

GAG, on 19 July 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:

Swapping RX / TX wires for 'trial and error' is one thing but swapping insert card positions during the operation will surely give me the jitters ! Regards GAG

Yep.

What is recommended in newer versions is to use a cardboard to cover EITHER one OR the other set of contacts.

I.e. the general idea is to flip a coin, if it comes out head you cover the head contacts and attempt the procedure.
If it comes out cross, you cover the motor contacts and attempt the procedure.

If the procedure doesn't work, you re-do from start, i.e. you power off EVERY device involved, take all the time needed to unscrew/disassemble again the PCB and place the card on the "other" set of contacts.

Unfortunately we have a very small number of people willing to re-brick their HD to see if the "other" procedure works... so we have NOT a reliable database of which of the two set of contacts has given "better" results.

But we have a single positive, documented result (in the mentioned guide):

Quote

(Note: Some guides on the web have suggested insulating the *other* set of contacts (the "head" contacts) you see in the lower left of the above photo to the right. I tried this originally and it didn't work for me but obviously others have had some success with it. In *my* case, with 1TB model drives, I can assure you that insulating the slightly easier to access motor contacts worked where the head contacts method didn't. I suspect the specific model of your drive will account for the varying levels of the results so if one way doesn't work for you, think about trying the other. You'll know to look here if the HyperTerminal session won't allow you to spin down the drive and continues to give you the BSY error in reply - "LED:01...blah blah blah". If you're allowed to spin down the drive, then this bit isn't your issue.)

You might also want to notice how it is perfectly possible to insert the cardboard under the "motor" contacts by unscrewing/loosening one single screw, though it is NOT recommended (but there is no need to completely remove the PCB, at the most you need to loosen another one or two screws), whilst to try inserting the cardboard under the "head" contacts you need to unscrew/losen at least three of them or, more likely, the complete removal of the PCB may be necessary.

Try passing the above over Occam's Razor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

And see which choice is more worth trying as first attempt , then make your choice, but choose wisely...
http://www.imdb.com/...t0097576/quotes

Quote

Grail Knight: But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.

Seriously, there is no actual way to know this whole topic is permeated by some kind of "magic", we miss too many proper reports and actual knowledge on the way the stoopid hard disk works to be able to suggest one or the other.

The theory is clear: induce an error on the board in order to allow access form the terminal, the original guides, which said to completely remove the PCB and re-mount it whilst powered, obviously created the error by disconnecting BOTH sets of contacts.
Though actually not that difficult, it is potentially very dangerous as a simple slip of the finger or a screw falling may fry the powered-on board, I would estimate that in the hands of an average user doing 15 times the cardboard trick for each set of contacts is roughly as dangerous as doing it once with the removal/re-assembling while-powered-on approach.

jaclaz

[CarterInCanada]

Hey there hard drive warriors!

It's been a while since I peeked in here and just wanted to say thanks for all the kind words (in here and sent directly) for that little bit of prose I contributed to this monster of a topic last year. You guys (jaclaz especially and you too Videoripper) are doing great work in here.

I just updated my guide at http://www.mapleleaf...agatebrick.html to include some tips on grounding and voltage to perhaps help those that are using setups different enough from the one I wanted to spell out to cause problems. Maybe that will lighten the load a bit with folks getting tripped up with other adapters that need the ground pin connected to behave - you're right that it's never a bad idea if you've got the jumper right there and handy. Seems most of the email I get is about XYZ brand adapter not handshaking properly. If nothing else, they'll have a good pizza recipe if they snoop around the site some. LOL

Apart from the thanks, I wanted to add that the 7200.11s of my own that I've de-bricked are still in service and running fine on SD1A. They've been on mostly 24x7 since early last year when I debricked them. I'm working new 7200.12s into the rotation as I don't keep any drive in service more than say four years but time will tell if I have a higher than normal failure rate on this batch before natural "retirement". Things look good so far. I see a lot of folks asking if they're "safe" after the fix and mine don't seem to have any further problems related to the fix. But then, I also have duplicate hard drives of EVERYTHING plus some emergency drives stashed away. I have to repeat what jaclaz said...ALL drives will fail, it's just a matter of when. DO YOUR BACKUPS. You guys would be amazed at some of the stories I've been getting in email where people that have decades of work and business data and such on only ONE drive. Maddness that is. I think the best story so far was the pie shop in the UK that said they had twenty years of secret recipes (and business data) that was saved by the fix. They told me that if I was ever in Kent, I could have free pie! LOL

Any way, keep up the good work in here lads and lasses. The digital karma will surely come back to you many times over. Cheers!

- Carter in Canada

[jaclaz]

CarterInCanada, on 19 July 2010 - 09:23 AM, said:

Hey there hard drive warriors!

Hi Carter long time, no see.

Happy that both you and cats are well.

It would be appreciated, since you are in "update mood", if you could cross link from your guide to the read-me-first:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=143880
so that the number of people that will read AFTER will decrease.

jaclaz

[Falcon7]

My Seagate ST3500620AS (from a HP computer) bricked last Fri. I just ordered parts to attempt this fix. My question, if I succeed and after back-up should I use the HP firmware update (sp40966.exe) or the (ms-sd1a.exe) from Seagate?
Sorry if this has already been answered. I've been reading this for hours, but I may have missed it.
And thanks so much for this forum!

[jaclaz]

Falcon7, on 19 July 2010 - 12:50 PM, said:

My Seagate ST3500620AS (from a HP computer) bricked last Fri. I just ordered parts to attempt this fix. My question, if I succeed and after back-up should I use the HP firmware update (sp40966.exe) or the (ms-sd1a.exe) from Seagate?
Sorry if this has already been answered. I've been reading this for hours, but I may have missed it.
And thanks so much for this forum!

If the drive is "labeled" HP it's an OEM drive and you should use the HP one.
If the drive is labeled Seagate (no matter where it was installed to) use the Seagate one.
(I suspect that there are not many differences between the two at actual code level)

The main thing is that you run BOTH the Short and Long DST tests BEFORE updating the firmware, and if anything is not OK, you try to RMA the drive.

Check also against point #5
http://www.msfn.org/...-read-me-first/

Usually if you are within the terms of warranty (and shout aloud enough ) you can manage to have a replacement drive, at least from Seagate.



jaclaz

[Falcon7]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2010 - 01:40 PM, said:

Falcon7, on 19 July 2010 - 12:50 PM, said:

My Seagate ST3500620AS (from a HP computer) bricked last Fri. I just ordered parts to attempt this fix. My question, if I succeed and after back-up should I use the HP firmware update (sp40966.exe) or the (ms-sd1a.exe) from Seagate?
Sorry if this has already been answered. I've been reading this for hours, but I may have missed it.
And thanks so much for this forum!

If the drive is "labeled" HP it's an OEM drive and you should use the HP one.
If the drive is labeled Seagate (no matter where it was installed to) use the Seagate one.
(I suspect that there are not many differences between the two at actual code level)

The main thing is that you run BOTH the Short and Long DST tests BEFORE updating the firmware, and if anything is not OK, you try to RMA the drive.

Check also against point #5
http://www.msfn.org/...-read-me-first/

Usually if you are within the terms of warranty (and shout aloud enough ) you can manage to have a replacement drive, at least from Seagate.



jaclaz

Thanks for your response, the drive is labeled Seagate, but the firmware is HP24. So now what?
Thanks, again.

[jaclaz]

Falcon7, on 19 July 2010 - 01:57 PM, said:

Thanks for your response, the drive is labeled Seagate, but the firmware is HP24. So now what?
Thanks, again.

Sure it is labeled Seagate , point is that if it is also labeled with the HP logo and a HP part number.

Post a photo of it if you are not sure, but if it has an HP firmware it is an HP OEM drive (unless someone already fiddled with it).

jaclaz

[Falcon7]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2010 - 02:10 PM, said:

Falcon7, on 19 July 2010 - 01:57 PM, said:

Thanks for your response, the drive is labeled Seagate, but the firmware is HP24. So now what?
Thanks, again.

Sure it is labeled Seagate , point is that if it is also labeled with the HP logo and a HP part number.

Post a photo of it if you are not sure, but if it has an HP firmware it is an HP OEM drive (unless someone already fiddled with it).

jaclaz

No HP logo at all on drive. I got the computer new, unopened box in Feb. 2009. So it must be an HP OEM drive.
Thanks again.

[FluffyKitten]

A quick thank you to everybody who's contributed to this thread - my Maxtor DiamondMax is now unbricked

In case it's of any interest to anybody, I went with the CA42 cable solution - the one I ordered turned out to have 5 wires (black, white, blue, green and orange) and the USB plug could be opened to reveal a circuit board marked DKU5 but only the GND connection (black wire) was labelled. White and blue were TX and RX (not sure which way round) and to get the cable to work at all, I had to connect the black and orange wires to 2 1.5V batteries.

I didn't need to connect up the ground pin on the hard drive. Presumably because I was powering the drive from the PSU in the PC that had the CA42 connected, everything would have had a common ground anyway.

I put card under the head connectors, not the motor connectors. I completely removed the screw from above the head connectors and didn't bother attempting to replace it when the card was removed. Seemed like an unnecessary risk to try to get the screw back into the live PCB without it touching something it shouldn't.

Initially I tried the final step without power cycling the drive as suggested in Aviko's instructions but this resulted in nothing happening as far as I could tell. After 30 minutes of waiting for a response to appear in hyperterminal, I power cycled the drive, got the prompt back up in hyperterminal and tried the final command again, this time successfully.

[Falcon7]

So this will not work (AT LEAST NOT EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED) for my Seagate ST3500620AS from a HP computer with HP24 Firmware which bricked last Fri. Correct?
If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

[CarterInCanada]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2010 - 10:17 AM, said:

CarterInCanada, on 19 July 2010 - 09:23 AM, said:

Hey there hard drive warriors!

Hi Carter long time, no see.

Happy that both you and cats are well.

It would be appreciated, since you are in "update mood", if you could cross link from your guide to the read-me-first:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=143880
so that the number of people that will read AFTER will decrease.

jaclaz

No worries jaclaz. Updated the links a bit and tried to make it clear to read your starting point BEFORE this monster. Well done putting that filter up to help sort out the potentially happy bunnies from the permanently angry lizards. And good luck in here, I'll try to check back in more often than every 50 pages. Cheers!

- Carter in Canada

[GAG]

Quote

You guys (jaclaz especially and you too Videoripper) are doing great work in here.

Amen.

Thanks Jaclaz.

Request for one more clarification:

It is ideal that the Hyperterminal contact is not broken during the process except during the intermediate power down step. Given that the connections are "home made" if one is using a Nokia cable, is there a risk if any of the TX / RX / GND pins loose contact during the procedure?

At what stage is it ok to have a pin coming loose and at what stage it can screw up the procedure? Below, I am numbering as 1 to 11, the key steps post initial connection. My understanding is that it is safe to loose contact till step 3. One can just start again. I am more worried about step 4 when the process of card removal may be a bit rough and a small jerk may cause a connector pin to move.

1. ctrl+z
2. /2 (press Enter key
3. Z (press Enter key)
4. Remove card
5. U (press Enter key)
6. /1 (press Enter key)
7. N1 (press Enter key)
8. Power recycle / call disconnect reconnect
9. ctrl+z
10. m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (press Enter key)
11. wait for Max Wr Retries = 00, Max .......

Is there any step when a disconnected HT connection means a permanently bricked drive?

[BlouBul]

Hi Gag,

The way I see it (Jaclaz,VideoRipper and Carter can correct me if I am wrong), the cable is just there to send short commands to your HDD in very basic language. It is not communicating all the time, but only send and receive short command bursts each time you press enter. If a Rx or Tx connection comes loose, you will immediately see it on your screen (no loopback, thus you will not see what you are typing)then you can reconnect it and make sure you re-type the full command (if your screen missed something due to no loopback) If grnd comes loose, same thing, there is lots of reports of people who didn't ground it, and redo it with grounding and not bricked their drive. Best is obviously to not loose contact, but as ong as you do not touch the wires during the process you should be OK.

BlouBul

[GAG]

Thanks BlouBul.. any other observation / tip is welcome..Regards GAG

[jaclaz]

BlouBul, on 20 July 2010 - 12:45 AM, said:

If grnd comes loose, same thing, there is lots of reports of people who didn't ground it, and redo it with grounding and not bricked their drive. Best is obviously to not loose contact, but as ong as you do not touch the wires during the process you should be OK.

Very well said.

Falcon7, on 19 July 2010 - 04:19 PM, said:

So this will not work (AT LEAST NOT EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED) for my Seagate ST3500620AS from a HP computer with HP24 Firmware which bricked last Fri. Correct?

NO.

I'll try again to break down the structure in priorities for you:

Facts:

• you have a bricked drive
  
• this drive is bricked presumably because a stoopid software in the drive has been made in such a way that every time you position 320 of the log (or multiple mod 256) is hit , the drive gets bricked when powered on
  
• you have valuable DATA on the drive, but not valuable enough to pay several hundred dollars to a recovery firm, or however you want to take your chances trusting a bunch of crazy people on an internet forum and follow the procedure suggested

• PRIMARY Objective:
  
  • save your otherwise UNbacked up DATA by having a TEMPORARILY functional unbricked drive
  
  
  
• SECONDARY objective (SUGGESTED):
  
  • set things so that such a problem won't happen again (learn from experience=BACKUP!)
  
  
  
• TERTIARY objective (OPTIONAL):
  
  • attempt to have the once bricked drive fully functional or have a new working one

THEN:

• Procedure to reach PRIMARY objective :
  
  • unbrick the drive as per instructions
    
  • image (or however copy/recover the DATA in it) to another, surely working, drive
  
  
  
• Procedure to reach SECONDARY objective:
  
  • make an additional copy (better, TWO of them) of the data on different media
  
  
  
• Procedure to reach TERTIARY objective (IF first two succeeded):
  
  • test thoroughfully the unbricked drive
    
  • IF anything is not OK, and if under warranty RMA it
    
  • IF RMA is not possible or the drive shows no errors, decide if you prefer:
    
    • to throw into the dustbin the stoopid drive anyway
      OR
      
    • to continue using it

[CarterInCanada]

Unbrick -> Backup Data -> Firmware Update Agreed! Once the data is safe-ish, you can afford to be a bit more cavalier with the (formerly bricked) drive.

I suppose it pays to re-read my old prose as well as get a fresh cup of tea. I realized after reading this post that I didn't actually bother to TELL people to do their backups in my guide so I've fixed that oversight. I suppose I just assumed they'd be dancing about with joy so much that it would be obvious. Spot on again jaclaz. Well done mate.

Cheers,

Carter in Canada

[VideoRipper]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2010 - 04:53 AM, said:

The only one that may be able to reply to you is VideoRipper, since he built his own converter,

I'ld need to check it first, of course, before I can give you a final
answer on that, but I'll have a look

I recall a small and easy tip of one of my professors (about 20 years ago)
on university to find out what pin/wire is the RX and what's the TX.

It had something to do with being actively high or low in its idle state and
measuring that level with a multimeter to determine which is which.
(I believe RX is active high when idle, but it could be the other way round)
Don't think I will be able to find that note after 20 years, but I will take
my multimeter with that tip in mind and tell you the result.

Greetz,

Peter.

[jaclaz]

VideoRipper, on 20 July 2010 - 12:09 PM, said:

Don't think I will be able to find that note after 20 years, but I will take
my multimeter with that tip in mind and tell you the result.

I would have thought that you have the schematics of the "super-deluxe" thingy, problem would be if you remember how you connected the cables to the HD pins, on the MAX232 side, Tx should be the whatever connected to pin 10 or pin 11 (T1IN and T2IN) (or the 9 and 12 R1OUT and R2OUT? ).



jaclaz

[VideoRipper]

A schematic would be too obvious, wouldn't it?
Nah... I did everything from the top of my head; it isn't "Really" a schematic, is it.

But... your wish is my command and I pulled out my trusty screwdriver to see what
goes where (I used a 2mm connector at the drive's end, so I wouldn't have to wrestle
with loose cabling and pins) and these are the results:

• goes to pin 9 of the MAX232, so that would make it RX
  
• goes to pin 10 of the MAX232, making it TX
  
• goes to GROUND of the MAX232, making it... GND

Designators are for the drive, so you connect pin 1 of drive to TX of the PC, 2 of
drive to RX of PC, 3 of drive to GND of PC; the 4th pin on the drive is not used.

Greetz,

Peter.

[GAG]

Peter.. Thanks. I am yet to attempt the debricking operation (scheduled now for the coming weekend) so really appreciate your efforts. While I have some technical background but that is motor cars and IC engines related stuff so this 9th pin / 10th pin is very Greek and Latin to me.. but your diagram and the post is crystal clear