Mr.FancyPants

i didn't use the data cable you are using, i used a different Adaptor, (see my post above) that did everything for me already, i just needed to set the jumper cable. It was much easier and much less work, and it only costed me less then 20 bucks. But when you run hyper terminal it generally shows up as a com port, usually com2, or com3

Well i used the same fix on my Seagate 640 HDD, with the same problems, that Seagate won't recognize as a problem drive and wouldn't do anything for me. I ended up buying this usb to ttl adaptor It's much easier, it's powered by USB so it cuts down on the work needed, took about a week and a half for it to arrive.