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Hi Robin As I successfully unbricked my ST31000340AS drive with the FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 cable I'd thought I'd share what I did to see if that offers you any useful tips to resolve your problems. I went for the FTDI cable as it avoided the need to play around with any secondary power source. First I used 2 computers to do this. The first was the desktop PC that had to failed drive. I unplugged the SATA data cable from the drive, but left the original SATA power cable plugged in. This seemed much easier than trying to rig up a power source for the drive. It also avoided the issue that people reported on some SATA extension power cables not containing all the required wires. It also meant I could use the normal PC on/off button to control the power to the drive. (if you had any other hard drives I would suggest unplugging them to avoid damaging them) The second PC was a laptop that was used to run the hyperterminal commands, and had the FTDI cable attached. I had to download and install the VCP drivers for the cable to be recognised as a COM port. You can get the drivers here http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm Once installed I started hyperterminal and doubled checked I had the right COM port by unplugging the FTDI cable and noting which COM port disappeared. As far as wiring for the FTDI cable I did the following - Orange (TXD) - Connected to 1st terminal pin on PCB (closest pin to SATA adapter) - Yellow (RXD) - Connected to 2nd terminal pin on PCB (2nd closest pin to SATA adapter) - Black (GND) - Connected to 3rd terminal pin on PCB (3rd closest pin to SATA adapter). I didn't do anything with any of the other cables. On the disk drive I place a business card over just the centre drive contacts. I then turned on the power to the desktop PC to provide the power to the hard disk PCB. I waited for the disk to spin up. On my drive I could hear it start to spin, and then after 10 seconds or so it didn't make any additional sounds. (it was this that made me think that the drive wasn't really dead, and lucky find this thread) I've had other disks die and they generally made a sound that doesn't sound healthy straight away. At that point I started Hyperterminal, and used the settings described, making sure to select the correct COM port for the FTDI cable. - Baud: 38400, Data Bits: 8, Stop Bits: 1, Parity: none, Flow Control: none As this point I could then use the CTRL+z and got the "F3 T>" prompt. I then following the exact commands as described by CarterInCanada on his web site. Hopefully the above gives you a few more pointers to check out if you are still struggling

I want to add my thanks to Gradius, Aviko and AlexLilic !!!!! Without your excellent advice I would still be swearing and cursing. There were a few confusing parts, and definitely a few heart stopping moments, but my drive is now alive, and my data safe. For anyone else going to give this a go then I totally recommend the FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB Cable. This was a very simple cable to use following AlexLilic wiring directions (on page 35). The ideal part about this cable is you don't have to play around with any additional power (battery or mains). For those in the UK I got mine from FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB . Outstanding service as this was posted to me the same day !! Note: You DO need the standard SATA power cable connected to the disk drive. (This confused me for quite a while) I used a spare power lead from another PC. This also allowed me to easily turn on and off the power to the drive. For those with a disk set up like mine I had the jumper over the 3rd and 4th pins on the disk. I had to take this off so that I could connect the ground cable. As soon as I did that then the "F3 T>" prompt. Also note that as I only used the single card under the drive spindle (the one at the centre of the disk) it means YOU MUST TURN OFF THE POWER TO THE DRIVE (i.e turn off the SATA power supply you connected to the disk) before you issue the Partition regeneration "m0,2,2,,,,,22" command. Gradius clearly mentions this a number of times, but I noted a few others have missed this step. I missed this the first time, but maybe got lucky and now have a working drive As an additional item, I also had trouble updating the firmware. I was getting an error on booting from the CD. I had to turn off the RAID support within the BIOS. After that everything worked and I managed to update to the latest firmware. I can only hope that this fixes the problem for good.