[jaclaz]

mentalmike, on 06 July 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

So again it sounds like the same problem as AVIATEL. He was recommended to read a few posts higher by Jaclaz - which post was this specifically?

Probably this one:
http://www.msfn.org/.../page__st__4080
AND links in it.

jaclaz

[mentalmike]

jaclaz, on 07 July 2012 - 03:50 AM, said:

Probably this one:
http://www.msfn.org/.../page__st__4080
AND links in it.

jaclaz

Thanks for the reply jaclaz.

I have tried this:
"Easy test, holding the drive in your hand, with NO power attached, then try slowly rotating it from a horizontal position to a vertical one and continue until you have completely flipped over the drive.
Power it up and try doing the same movements, you'll notice immediately (if it is spinning ) a kind of resistance due to the gyroscopic effect of the rotating platter(s)."

I can feel the drive spin up, then spin down, then spin up and down in an endless loop. What I can't feel or hear compared to a drive that I know works is the heads moving - no clicking, no feeling of them seeking at power up.

Any advice on what I can do or is it a case of send it away for data recovery?

[jaclaz]

mentalmike, on 07 July 2012 - 05:08 AM, said:

Any advice on what I can do or is it a case of send it away for data recovery?

It could be something completely UNrelated to the "main issue" described in this thread.
Is the disk LBA0 or BSY?

What I personally would do would be:

• clean the contacts (BOTH heads and motor one) THOROUGHFULLY
  
• try, following it to the letter, this guide:
  http://www.mapleleaf...agatebrick.html
  
• try at first with the head contacts insulated, if it doesn't work, try again with the motor contacts insulated.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 07 July 2012 - 07:57 AM

[smandurlo]

I fixed a drive spinning on and off like yours. I used the normal procedure in the first page, the last command (m0,2,2,,,,,22) the drive spinned off for several minutes and then it spinned on again.

Check my experience in this post. Anyway I am not the only one, another user had the same result.

[ChuckleHut]

This worked for me, without the need for the optional step. I'm now copying data off that drive. Thank you. This has been a great help.


One thing - the last step didn't take 15-30 seconds, it took a few minutes. The output came in three steps, with a minute or so in between. But still as expected.

[BlouBul]

ChuckleHut, on 19 July 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

, without the need for the optional step.

One thing - the last step didn't take 15-30 seconds, it took a few minutes. The output came in three steps, with a minute or so in between. But still as expected.

That is because you did not do the optional power down. It can take up to a couple of hours (or forever) if you do not do that

ChuckleHut, on 19 July 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

This worked for me,.. I'm now copying data off that drive. Thank you. This has been a great help.

Anyway, glad you managed to fix it

[smandurlo]

BlouBul, on 19 July 2012 - 09:47 AM, said:

That is because you did not do the optional power down. It can take up to a couple of hours (or forever) if you do not do that

I disagree, it happens both if you power down or if you don't power down the drive.

[jaclaz]

@BlouBul
@smandurlo

It is so RARE an occasion to be able to disagree with BOTH of you that I cannot miss it .

You seem to forget how the "solution" is actually the solution to an original quite "narrow" problem, or actually is/was a cure for a single, specific "illness" that presents/presented with two specific symptoms (LBA0 and BSY).
At the beginning of this story, we knew for a fact that these Seagate disks had this "congenital" disease, that presented itself with these symptoms.

But the cure was intended for the illness, NOT for the symptoms (if provoked by another illness).

Let's take Aspirin as an example.
http://en.wikipedia....in#Medical_uses
Aspirin is good for "common cold" and consequent fever.
Aspirin is also very good for "rheumatic fever".

BUT it is NOT a cure for *any* fever and actually doses to cure the two different kind of fevers above are VERY different AND the time needed to have a positive effect varies.
A patient having a "common cold" will be threated with Aspirin for (say) three days with relatively low dosage.
A patient having a "acute rheumatic fever" will be threated with Aspirin for one, two or more weeks with relatively high dosage.

If you prefer the same "cure" when applied to different illnesses will produce beneficial results in different times.

We know (or presume to know) that when we apply the "solution" to a disk that is in either BSY or LBA0 BECAUSE of the original log position issue, the message comes out in a few seconds.
We also know that in some cases the time needed to get to that message is much longer.
This could well be because these latter disks (expecially if recent and not being affected by the congenital "factory + SD15" issue) have another illness, let's call it "rheumatic fever", that - by pure chance - has the same symptoms of "fever", BUT that is NOT caused by "common cold".
It is also well possible that the "optional power down" is not-so-optional when curing "common cold", but it is vital (or completely unneeded and possibly counter-productive) when curing "rheumatic fever"....

jaclaz

[smandurlo]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

@smandurlo

It is so RARE an occasion to be able to disagree with BOTH of you that I cannot miss it .

Indeed u could miss it... I just said "it happens if u both power down or not". Was it different from what you said? Yes, my sentence was just shorter...

(jaclaz, davvero, mi ci è voluta una flebo per arrivare a metà e poi ho gettato la spugna. Alla fine il succo è che spegnerlo o meno cambia nulla)

[BlouBul]

jaclaz, on 19 July 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

It is so RARE an occasion to be able to disagree with BOTH of you that I cannot miss it .

I actually agree with you (except for the part where you are saying that you are disagreeing with me)
What I meant (maybe it did not quite came out that way) was:

Quote

It can take up to a couple of hours (or forever) if you do not do that

meaning it is not necessarily a problem, but when it is a problem, then it is usually when someone did not power down (probably due to the rheumatic fever case (BTW good explanation), where I think it is needed.).

[jaclaz]

Well, as I see it we miss a "core" requisite in computing, which is "repeatability".

We have *any* number of different people that use (very often for the first time in their life) *different* or *slightly different* sets of instructions to do some *magic* on different disks (different serial/models, different period of manufacture, different factory, different firmwares, different PCB's versions and much more than that possibly different "root" issues) and that normally report (WHEN they report some details) only partially the info about the recovery they succeeded with, and in many cases this info is missing alltogether or plainly wrong.

Now if there was a repeatable way for a same experimenter to "intentionally" brick a number of *same* disks (same model, same period of manufacture, same factory, same firmware, same PCB version) in EXACTLY the same manner, and the results of these tests were confirmed by another independent experimenter, then we would have some certainties.

As a matter of fact we are currently (at least I feel like being) much more near to
http://en.wikipedia....tional_medicine
than to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine

Not completely unlike a tribal wizard or sorcerer, we provide our experience on similar cases, not really knowing what the heck happens when we apply the "cure" nor what has happened before (the cause or origin of the illness), only knowing that in some, similar cases with similar symptoms this particular spell has produced a positive effect .

The disagreement was only related to the fact that both of you presented your opinions or (educated ) guesses, as "only and undeniable truth", while they are - at the most - the (diverging) results of your experience and/or observations.

http://en.wikipedia...._I_know_nothing


jaclaz

[JuergenD]

After finally establishing a connection with my ST3500620AS HP24 via a cloned CA-42 cable (it took forever to find a driver), I wound up with the following output:

F3 T>m0,2,2,,,,,22
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 14, Max Certify Rewr
ite Retries = 00C8

User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs

F3 T>

Note, the elapsed time is 0, 00 and at least one line seems to be misssing. The drive is still not recognized by a SATA to USB Hard Drive Dock. What am I missing?

Juergen

This post has been edited by JuergenD: 21 July 2012 - 05:13 PM

[BlouBul]

Can you see it in BIOS (and is it working) if you connect it directly to your computer via SATA?

[JuergenD]

BlouBul, on 22 July 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

Can you see it in BIOS (and is it working) if you connect it directly to your computer via SATA?

Thanks. I suppose I should have tried that first. All is well, the BIOS sees it and I can even boot the computer from it. Now I've got to figure out why the SATA -to-USB dock did not see it, but that is a project for another day...

Juergen

[BlouBul]

JuergenD, on 22 July 2012 - 12:45 PM, said:

Thanks. I suppose I should have tried that first. All is well, the BIOS sees it and I can even boot the computer from it. Now I've got to figure out why the SATA -to-USB dock did not see it, but that is a project for another day...

Juergen

You are welcome . Sometimes we do try to complicate things for ourselves unnecessary...
Anyway, glad you can access your drive again.

[lir3]

Hi,
I just joined the forum now. Thanks for the opportunity.
I am trying to rescue data from a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, 1.5TB with CC1H firmware.
The problem started after a thunderstorm causing power blackout over last weekend.
The drive would not be able to read sector #0. I swapped the controller card from a similar drive (everything matches including the Date and Site Codes, except for serial number) and then swapped the ROM chip.
After that the drive is not seen at BIOS level (it does not seem to spin-up anymore).
I am trying the serial port access by using the rs232 shifter SMD PRT-00449 and using power from the orange pin that also goes to the hard drive, so it feeds 3.3v.
I read in the README 1st that this shifter requires 3v. But I get response from the drive and keyboard commands are taken.
However, the response from the drive is like this:

Notet Boot ROM 4.2
Copyright Seagate 2008

Serial FLASH boot code checksum failure!
Boot Cmds:
DS
AP <addr>
WT <data>
RD
GO
TE
BR <divisor>
BT
?
RET
>

If I enter CtrlZ it responds:
Bad command: 0x1A0D
>

I basically cannot find a way to get into the F3 T mode.
Can you please tell me if I am missing something?

Note: I get the expected behavior (The F3 T> prompt from pressing CtrlZ) using the same setup and a good Seagate drive.
Thanks.

This post has been edited by lir3: 26 July 2012 - 12:19 AM

[jaclaz]

lir3, on 25 July 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

The drive would not be able to read sector #0. I swapped the controller card from a similar drive (everything matches including the Date and Site Codes, except for serial number)

WHY?

lir3, on 25 July 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

and then swapped the ROM chip.

HOW?

This means (more or less) :

lir3, on 25 July 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

Serial FLASH boot code checksum failure!

that somethig went wrong with the "ROM chip" (please read as "container of the FLASH boot code") .

jaclaz

[smandurlo]

lir3, on 25 July 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

Can you please tell me if I am missing something?

you made a real mess.

First of all, why did you change the pcb? If it was not fried there was not a reason to change it.

Second, why do you want to perform the solution for something else completly different from you problem? It sounds like you have fever and you get a pill for diarrhoea.

Third, if your drive doesn't spin up, there is something wrong with the new pcb and/or the way you solder the rom chip. It happens if you make an awful welding with a possible burning of the rom chip... that means to say good bye to you data.

This post has been edited by smandurlo: 26 July 2012 - 03:20 AM

[lir3]

Thanks for your comments.

I wanted to take the risk and try another board, because the failure was during a storm. There was a slight chance that the damage was there even if nothing appeared as burned.
You are right in that I did not detect the exact symptom, which now looks more like stuck heads.
Anyway, I got back to corner 0 as I have restored the original ROM chip and board to the drive and it is not showing the flash boot checksum error and boot prompt anymore, just as it was before.
The motor spins up and the drive makes like 12 kick noises and then the motor stops, but there is no output to the serial terminal and it does not respond to Ctrl-Z.
That was the original symptom.
I notice that if I isolate the hda and or motor pins, even the good drives with Firmware CC1H and CC1J do not work, do not respond to Ctrl-Z or anything.
Do you know if this method of entering Diagnostic mode has been modified on recent firmware versions?

I have read many of the pages in this forum now and it looks like for my drive, apart from sending it to DR places, which would cost a lot for having messed with the ROM, I will only have the crude freezing or tapping methods.
Do you have a way to search within the topics or the forum?

Thanks again.

This post has been edited by lir3: 26 July 2012 - 09:05 PM

[jaclaz]

lir3, on 26 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Anyway, I got back to corner 0 as I have restored the original ROM chip and board to the drive and it is not showing the flash boot checksum error and boot prompt anymore, just as it was before.

This is good .

lir3, on 26 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

The motor spins up and the drive makes like 12 kick noises and then the motor stops, but there is no output to the serial terminal and it does not respond to Ctrl-Z.
That was the original symptom.

Which could possibly be NOT "stuck heads" as you are now guessing.
I mean, if the heads are actually stuck, the arm should not move (nor the motor spinning at all).

lir3, on 26 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

I notice that if I isolate the hda and or motor pins, even the good drives with Firmware CC1H and CC1J do not work, do not respond to Ctrl-Z or anything.
Do you know if this method of entering Diagnostic mode has been modified on recent firmware versions?

No, your is the first report of such behaviour on a 7200.11 that I can remember, BUT is quite normal on 7200.11 ES2 and on other models, like the 7200.12 and possibly the "green" ones..
For these latter ones two pins must be shorted to access terminal, but you should anyway get something through the TTL connection, you simply cannot get to the terminal prompt without the quick short of the "read channel".

lir3, on 26 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

I have read many of the pages in this forum now and it looks like for my drive, apart from sending it to DR places, which would cost a lot for having messed with the ROM, I will only have the crude freezing or tapping methods.

Yes, that is just a matter of the value you attribute to your (lost ) data.

lir3, on 26 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Do you have a way to search within the topics or the forum?

Check my signature....

jaclaz