fuzzby

I'm sure the fear of one has contributed in keeping Seagate quiet and unresponsive thus far. No doubt the liability calculators are out! But even if there is one I doubt anything substantial will come of it. Maybe a $100 rebate off another drive? I don't believe the IBM class action amounted to much. IANAL but I'm pretty sure damages resulting from loss of data cannot legally be brought over storage manufacturers.

Quite rightly so. I would imagine Salvation Data spent a lot of time and money finding a solution to Seagate's problem. If you're going to steal anyone's IP it should be Seagate's Anways, I went the Salavation Data route so I may be biased but what they charge compared to a Pro DR center is quite reasonable. Just keep in mind that what SD sells you is not exactly consumer friendly. A lot of fussing and mucking around still has to be done with their solution.

I'm a little reluctant to peek inside it or modify it yet as I'll still need it in 100% working condition for other people sending me in drives. I would imagine I'd be offering this for a few more weeks but after that I'm game with whatever will help get to the bottom of this. Funny you mention Canada that as its Americans that are sending me these drives. PM me if you want my help. I'm not out to profit from this. I work in IT support at a major Canadian bank so I'm familiar with confidentiality/privacy procedures. Anyways I'll be doing it for the a few weeks and then hopefully by then we'll have more people here with the kit that can help uut and share the burden of cost.

What is the full chain? PC ----USB----console-----serial cable------? special adapter ? ----- harddrive? -IDE - IDE/SATA adapter (requires another power cable) - HDD SATA data PC - USB - > console < -serial transmitter - pin adapter - jumpers on HDD power adaptor -molex power - molex/sata power adapter - HDD SATA power tried to be as descriptive as possible. does that make sense? the chevrons are splits

Saludos, ToKuRo. LOL! Nah, I think you're reading too much into it! I'm sure HE knows that there's an issue. I bet he's never seen such a spike in chatter over one line of drives before all this. But obviously as a rep of Seagate he can't admit to anything and he'd lose his job if he did. I wonder if how he sleeps ok at night tho... But in all seriousness he's just trying to clear out traffic from anyone who might have an actually working drive or some other failure. I work in IT support and too often end users complain about something broken when there's in fact nothing wrong with it. Seagate Forums don't have a specialized or niche tech audience like we have here. You would expect a wide range of competencies posting there.

Can you please post a picture of the Serial to SATA cable? I've never seen one of these before. Mine is not that straight forward. There's a separate console that connects to the PC via USB. The serial cable is then connected to the console. It's definitely something I could NOT put together. The repair kit I got came with this and a whole bunch of adapters. The documentation and support was a bit painful and patience is definitely needed. Someone suggested teaming up in our locales and splitting the cost of the kit. As I doubt Seagate is going to do anything about it (they can't, really. The liability alone in this economic climate?) I would say this is probably the easiest method for anybody who needs their data back. I myself already have a couple people online shipping their drives to me to unbrick. I called a couple of Data Recovery sites and the cheapest quote started at $1500 low priority. I don't mind referring to these guys if you've dropped your hard drive while it was on or flooded it in the basement but for a simple firmware fix that should never have been there in the first place it seems like using a chainsaw when all you need is a pocket knife. For what it's worth I know someone who's trying to get Italy up and running but no repair kit yet. I'm in Toronto, Canada with a kit and a rescued ST31000AS SD15. --- Rule #1 Always back up your data Rule #2 Always back up your data (This is a backup to Rule #1)

Yes, this device is suitable. (It has MAX3232 or equivalent integrated circuit). You can use 5V or 3.3V to power supply. I use 3.3V and 1 resistance in series of 1K in RX and other resistance of 1K in TX (for protect hdd port). FWIW, for my recovery the price I paid for my serial to sata cable + software was $500. I wasn't brave enough to make my own and risking damaging the recovery further. The kit was missing a power adapter but luckily I had one. The fix takes about 5-10 minutes to implement. Day 5 of restore and it's still working. Not sure if the fix will be permanent though.

Oops, I posted a reply to the wrong message I think. I'll repost in here: Excellent idea moving the forums off of Seagate and I was so happy to see the Inquirer article. Anyways would like to report that I had the exact same issue with my ST31000AS with SD15 from Thailand. Would not detect on boot. Using a repair kit I purchased online (not cheap!) I was able to connect to the drive through a special serial connection that I did not recognize in my 15+ years of PC experience. With the included software I was able to clear the BSY (busy) lock on the HDD and also the 0GB detect issue. Full functionality was restored and the data intact. The kit was expensive so if the data is not valuable then I recommend RMAing it in. I've been hit with many requests from ppl online to unbrick their drives so if you want to mail it to me that's an option I'm providing. I'm located in Toronto, Canada. I'm in no way a professional recoverer nor am I looking to profiteer heavily from this. I lost 800GB from this Seagate defect and was pretty p***ed realmad.gif I'd imagine I'm not alone. Rule#1 - Always back up! Rule#2 - Always back up! (This is a backup to Rule#1)

Excellent idea moving the forums off of Seagate and I was so happy to see the Inquirer article. Anyways would like to report that I had the exact same issue with my ST31000AS with SD15 from Thailand. Would not detect on boot. Using a repair kit I purchased online (not cheap!) I was able to connect to the drive through a special serial connection that I did not recognize in my 15+ years of PC experience. With the included software I was able to clear the BSY (busy) lock on the HDD and also the 0GB detect issue. Full functionality was restored and the data intact. The kit was expensive so if the data is not valuable then I recommend RMAing it in. I've been hit with many requests from ppl online to unbrick their drives so if you want to mail it to me that's an option I'm providing. I'm located in Toronto, Canada. I'm in no way a professional recoverer nor am I looking to profiteer heavily from this. I lost 800GB from this Seagate defect and was pretty p***ed I'd imagine I'm not alone. Rule#1 - Always back up! Rule#2 - Always back up! (This is a backup to Rule#1)