aerostop

I'm just going to quickly post this before I goto bed, sorry if I've put it in the wrong place. After refusing to accept that my only option was to send my ST3500320AS (part number ending in 303) to seagate for a month, I thought I'd give the UART connection a go but couldn't find a ready made RS232 - TTL level converter in my town. Not wanting to wait 'till next week for something from ebay, I decided to follow this simple example to build my own. I'm happy to report that this example worked perfectly at 5v TTL voltage from the MAX232 chip with the only difference from the schematics on that page being that I pulled power from a stripped usb lead which I plugged in separately. The parts cost less than $20 AUD and were all available, in stock, from my local 'Jaycar' dealer. If you're not experienced with this sort of thing, just get a 'breadboard' like I did, a couple of lengths of different coloured wire, some pins and some heatshrink to ensure insulation and you can't really go wrong. Just remember to check the polarization of your capacitors and apply as indicated with the + on the diagram. To test the device I connected the TTL Tx and Rx together and transmitted some random data, e.g. 'hello', and had it echoed back through the Rx but it is important to note that if the power isn't connected to the device then it will echo back the same no matter what. So also test with the TTL Tx and Rx disconnected to make sure it isn't doing that, thus confirming that the chip is actually getting power. I followed the instructions and pics here to remove the BSY state on my drive but also checked everything against the instructions on the LBA 0GB fix page. I did notice that between the different sets of instructions, there is one discrepancy. The first power cycle of the drive is said to be done before the 'G-list Erase' command on one set of instructions, but after it on the other. I power cycled the drive before AND after, while holding my breath, and it worked fine. Excellent. Thanks Gradius2 and Fatlip + anyone else who had anything to do with this fix. It's saved me a month of down time. If anyone would like any more info or help with this, I'll be glad to do what I can. Aerostop