mrp41

Carter wrote : Mark, Hang in there, I know it's frustrating. I did things a bit different from Brad so I can't really advise about his approach. If you do it the way I used, the only thing that comes to my mind, and it's a longshot, is to check the settings in both your terminal program (Putty) and on the port hardware settings in your computer BIOS to make sure they match what the drive wants to see. The loopback test working fine says you have things plugged in properly (and in the case of loopback, the settings wouldn't stop it from communicating - loopback wires don't care about the speed, parity, etc.) but it sounds like there's some sort of mis-match when it comes time to actually communicate with the drive. A setting for your COM port like "automatic/software controlled" through the BIOS should be default but perhaps it was accidentally changed to some hard setting (like 2400/N/8/1/Xon) that's interfering with Putty? Other than that, I don't know Putty well enough to know if there are any other settings that might be accidentally fouling the communications. Are you on an OS where you could try another terminal program? Anyone else out there know Putty pretty well? Reading the other guides, the only other thing I can imagine could be some sort of grounding/voltage issue that's interfering with communications depending on how you're getting power to your serial-to-TTL adapter? Some part of your setup that comes into play when you switch from the loopback test to the actual drive? Sorry I'm not much help but those ideas are the only that come to mind. I'll keep thinking about it for you. Good luck! CarterInCanada Many thanks Carter, it was the COM settings in windows that were wrong . I changed them and straight away got an F3. Followed the method and now at last all is well !!!! Data is backing up as I type. Many thanks to all on this forum who have helped out on this issue. Cheers Mark (very relieved)

Hello, Hoping someone can help. My Maxtor Diamond 22 died this week . I have been following Brad Garcias guide but am having problems . If I isolate the head contacts with card the disc , on power on , spins up as normal . However after about 30 seconds it spins down and appears to be quite dead .. I cannot start a Putty session with the disc. Ctrl Z produces no prompt . The loop back test for the RS 232 -TTL convertor is fine . I am using a 5V convertor but the disc spinning down happens irrespective of whether it is connected or not . If I remove the card from the PCB the disc spins up as normal and stays spinning as long as power is on . If I try the method posted by Carter in Canada , isolating the motor contacts I still get no prompts. I have reversed the TX/RX . I am at a complete loss . Any ideas I can try . Thanks Mark