Hazor

7200.11 ST3500320AS, SD15 I'll start by saying that it has gone into the BSY state 2-3 times before, and I have successfully fixed it each time - and each time telling myself that I'd get around to applying the SD1A firmware ... then forgetting. RMA isn't an option as it's OEM. I've been searching/reading for 2+ hours now with no solutions found - sincerest apologies if I merely haven't happened across the solution.. Now, I've got it all hooked up with a notecard blocking the motor contacts, as I did each time before. I supply power to the HDD, wait a few moments, and press Ctrl+Z. Instead of being able to enter commands (e.g., /2) I get:: (Pressed Ctrl+Z) F3 T> F 3 T> F3 T>Arch Linux 3.1.9-18-ARCH+ (ttyAMA0) LED:000000CC FAddr:0025BF67 LED:000000CC FAddr:0025BF67 At which point I can not issue further commands. I have ensured isolation of the motor contacts and tried also removing the pcb such that both sets of contacts would be isolated, but I still get the same error. I even tried screwing the pcb back to the drive and doing it with all contacts contacting - as expected, it gave another LED:blah error which corresponds with the BSY state (LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051 I think?) I suspected that minicom was unwittingly trying to send some kind of greeting (perhaps along the lines of "\n\nArch Linux 3.1.9-18-ARCH+ (ttyAMA0)"), but I can't determine that minicom does such a thing and the only seemingly related concept is something called an 'init string', which was already blank. Still suspecting such a possibility that I just couldn't figure out, I tried a second serial console called ckermit. Its output is as follows: (Pressed Ctrl+Z) F3 T> F 3 T> [whole bunches lots of garbage characters]At which point I can not issue further commands nor even interact with the program and must kill the process. Other potentially relevant information: The previous times I did it all with a WinXP tower using hyperterminal and the rs232-ttl converter from alldav.com, supplying 5V from the tower's PSU. I think I fried that converter by accidentally reversing the power polarity (...reasons like this are why I elected to major in psychology instead of computer engineering) as it will no longer do a loopback test. As such, this time I am using a Raspberry Pi (www.raspberrypi.org) and its UART pins (uses 3V3, interoperable with TTL), running Arch Linux and using the program Minicom. However, because I am able to connect to the drive and receive an LED:00blah error from it, I do not believe that the change of hardware/software is related to the problem. I have re-re-re-re-checked the wires and the serial port settings. I tried with hardware flow control both on and off, and get the same error. So, am I completely missing something/doing something wrong? If not, anyone got any ideas?

If you'll see my post here on the previous page, mine had 10, including extended partitions. They seem to be working just fine.

I'm happy to report success on fixing the BSY flag for my drive. Thank you very much, Fatlip, Pichi, Gradius, et al. I did not have the 0GB problem, however, so I have nothing to report on that. One thing I'd like to discuss is this: 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 5% complete, Zone 00, Pass 00, LBA 00004339, ErrCode 000 User Partition Format 5% complete, Zone 00, Pass 00, LBA 00008DED, ErrCode 000 00080, Elapsed Time 0 mins 10 secs User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 10 secs F3 T> The m0,2,2,,,,,22 command took several minutes. I was concerned after about 2-3 minutes considering previous statements that the command should only take 15-30 seconds or a bit over 1 minute, but it finished anyway. So for those yet to do this: Don't panic if it takes a while. I wonder though, does the time it took have to do with the number of partitions? I have ten partitions, including several logical partitions for various Linux installs. I'm doubting that it's due to space used on the drive as I know some folks must've had more than 200GB used. It can't be much to do with the processor speed, I'm on a Core 2 Duo e7300 2.66GHz. Also, for the other people who have shown their output, only one User Partition Format line was reported - in the above I have two. Should I be concerned about that? Considering that it's working just fine I don't think so, but better safe than sorry. Could it be because I have extended partitions and those who have shown their output only have primary partitions?

:S Well, that was anticlimactic. I hooked it all up, powered on, and in hyperterminal I'm getting nothing. I switched the RX/TX lines (One fellow said he has his RX-RX and TX-TX instead of RX-TX and TX-RX, so I figured maybe mine was mislabled also), and still Ctrl+Z in hyperterminal does nothing. :S Any ideas? Edit: Nevermind. I have two COM port options, COM1 and COM3, I forgot to try COM1 again after switching the RX and TX connections. I've got the prompt now, using RX-RX and TX-TX.. Hm.. Mislabeled or? killerB, any chance you're using the alldav.com adapter too?

Yes, it will. I used a more expensive one, yet more simple: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_i...products_id=449 Includes full pics and schematic. Gradius Also note that with this one from alldav.com, it doesn't have pins on the gnd/rx/tx/vcc to connect your jumpers. I had my dad solder to it some of the headers that came with the jumper wires I got. I'm about to attempt the BSY fix with that adapter. I'll let you know how it goes.Also, Gradius: Not all the PCBs are like that. I have the rectangular one like Fatlip has on his: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=823633 So it may be a little bit different in which or how many screws need to be removed. I'm going to try to do the paper thing also. I'll report how it goes, and see about some pictures for anyone interested.

It's also worth noting that drastic declines are the norm all over right now, with the present economic situation, it's not just Seagate. (Although I would bet on this whole 7200.11 mess being part of the cause for them)

They are somewhat hand-in-hand problems. First the drive will lock up in a "BSY" state and will not be detected by the BIOS. Some have successfully unlocked their drive from the "BSY" state and it gets recognized by the BIOS but it is detected as LBA 0B in size. Was there not also a small handful of people who got the LBA = 0 problem without the BSY problem, or am I recalling incorrectly? Some many pages ago it was suggested that the probable reason for all the failure days being within the same time period was that people who had earlier failures would have moved on by now, and so only people who have recently had the problem would be turning up to give their fail date.East Tennessee is not the most technologically inclined place, I can't find a single shop around Knoxville that might have a Serial->TTL converter board. Further, I'm not the most knowledgeable about electronics, so converting something or making it myself as has been suggested is kind of out of the question for me for the time being. Such being the case, would this device be suitable? http://alldav.com/index.php?main_page=prod...;products_id=11 $4 and free shipping (In the U.S. only, no international orders I'm afraid..). Once I've got that, I'll only need to find a place that's not sold out of wires like this that Fatlip linked to: http://shop1.frys.com/product/4717419 Those exact wires I can't find for sale elsewhere online, and I'm not sure what to look for in terms of jumper wires, if anything specific at all. Would these work? They appear to be a 2" version of the same wires Fatlip linked to. http://shop1.frys.com/product/5102056

Hi. Since my HDD failed on January 09, 2009, I've been looking for solutions. After much searching I found the 7200.11 falling down thread on the Seagate forum, which prompted me to google more, through which I found this thread. I'll post my drive info in the other thread next time I shut down (booted from a 10? year old, 20GB Maxtor right now, lol. Still running just fine. :/). For now, I'll share that I know my serial starts with 9Q, that the firmware is SD15, and that it's the ST3500320AS model. Just like the rest of you, I booted one day only to see that the BIOS couldn't find my HDD, on which I was running 5 different Linux installs, and which contained much data of varying importance. Fortunately, I learned a long time ago to make many back ups of data that I absolutely can't live without, so I didn't lose anything vital. That said, I'd be willing to volunteer my drive as a guinea pig for those working on solutions. After reading the whole thread (452 posts, whew) I'm about to start calling the local computer/electronics shops to see if they have any Serial->TTL cards. If none do, I'll grab one on ebay. My technical knowledge isn't that of a hardware engineer, but I built the computer this drive went into and I'm not afraid of using a command line terminal, so just tell me what to do. Also, if anyone's still pondering whether it may be a virus, I can say with the utmost certainty that it's not. Combining the reports of Mac users and my fellow Linux users having this problem with my having not logged into Windows since I built this computer and installed the drive on Dec 02, there's no way a virus got to it. From my gathering, it's most definitely a problem with the firmware, which, from the data people have volunteered, appears to be the only major commonality (and if you've read the whole thread, you'll note that it's theorized that even the other listed versions are only minor revisions or just renamings of SD15). I encourage those who bought their drives from online retailers to give detailed, negative reviews for it on the respective web pages, and for everyone to inform their acquaintances that this line of drives is defective, so that others might be warned about the problem and not have to go through the same trouble. Lastly, thank you very much to Pichi and Fatlip, your efforts in seeking solutions to the problems we all have are greatly appreciated. And again, I'll gladly volunteer my HDD as a guinea pig for testing.