[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

Hi CarterInCanada.

Your site is good, helped me a lot.

I think most people have problems because they do not exacty follow the procedure.You must realise that a computer cannot think or guess what you want from it.It's build from usual electronic components, like all other pieces of electronic equipment.So you need some experience with other electronics especially to connect the TTL adapter.

You must understand what you are doing.

I must say after all this that I will probably never buy a Seagate drive again.This is not only because of this case, but also from other experience.I had already one another seagate drive and after some time it began to make some strange noises.Smart indicated it was short of failing.I use it as backup drive now.Then I've got a Maxtor drive wich is working flowlesly until now.So with this good experience I purchased also my next Maxtor drive, but at this time Maxtor was already sold to seegate and it was in reality a Seagate drive.And it was again not good.This is already my second bad drive and it's again Seagate.Next time I will try Western Digital.

[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

That was wrong.

You should give only one "F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22" command after "F3 1>N1" and don't need to decconect HDD.

F3 1>N1

Disconnected hdd an reconnected (some people say it's needed, but this is not needed, anyway I did not disconect my drive)

F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter)

qps maybe you can restore your data, but you need good software for this.

For instance "Active Partition Recovery"

[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

To kazamazax@gmail.com

Obviosly something is wrong either with your adapter or with the hyperterminal.

Have you connected a wire to GND pin also? You must connect three wires to your drive.TX, RX and GND.

Look here for more details about this:Website

the OS (XP Pro) says: there is an unformated media with 500GB... "would you like to format it"

I think somehwo the FATs or something like that are damaged due to my repairing trials?

I guess your data is lost.

but you say all data not deleted and only harddisk unlock .

Yes, if you make anything correct it will only unlock your drive.

[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

I have a question, however, what is the stability like on these drives after they have been recovered? Is it even more prone to happen (as I may have experienced)?

Well, this is the question.I don't know if there will be some longterm stability problems after this.Maybe it's better to copy all data to another drive then do a low level format and throw it out of the window after this.May be it hits a seegate man like a brick and he will think next time.

[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

No, it will not delete your data.It will only unlock your drive.

[The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs]

Hallo!

I just wanted to tell you my experience.I've got the Maxtor stm3500320as drive and one day my computer just did not recognise it in BIOS.It was still on garantee, but I had some sensible data on it.So I was really unhappy about this and did not know what to do.

Luckly for me I found this forum and I tried this recovery method.

This is exactly what I did:

Drive is busy error: drive ST3500320AS or STM3500320AS SD15

remove 3 screws nearest heads connector, motor connected, put something between pcb and hda to lift pcb and prevent contact.

Terminal Configuration:

You will need a terminal program on the computer to which you connect the RS232-to-TTL adapter. You can use Hyperterminal, which comes with Windows XP & earlier.

Configure your terminal program to use the serial port with the following settings:

Baud 38400

Data Bits 8

Stop Bits 1

Parity none

Flow Control none

Connect GND and +5V to on adapter to PC power supply, or similar.

You can use RED wire (+5V) from PC power supply. Blacks are GNDs (yellow is +12V so don't use it).

If you don't want to mess with power supply, just use a CR2032 (3V) battery

Keep in mind that pins TX and RX on Maxtor drives are reversed.

- From adapter (TX) to >>> RX (on Seagate)

- From adapter (RX) to >>> TX (on Seagate)

Check that your RS232-to-TTL adapter works.

You can check this if you connect TX and RX on your RS232-to-TTL adapter together and type something in the Hyperterminal window.

If you see what you type then it's working.

Power on, wait until drive stops motor, if you dont wait at this moment you get 000000CE error after next command

Press (ctrl+z)

You should then see a prompt like this:

F3 T>

If not, you may have the TX & RX wires swapped. Switch them and try again.

Access Level 2 (type /2):

F3 T>/2 (enter)

F3 2>

Then spin down the motor:

F3 2>Z (enter) (note it is a capital letter in this case)

Spin Down Complete

Elapsed Time 0.146 msecs (your times will be slightly different on all these replies)

F3 2>

Very carefully, remove the cardstock that you placed between the PCB and the drive head contacts.

Carefully replace and tighten the 3 loose screws. If you removed the screws, I suggest using a small piece of masking tape to help you hold the screws while you put them back in place.

Then start the motor:

F3 2>U (enter)

Spin Up Complete

Elapsed Time 6.864 secs

F3 2>

this part is not necessary, just checking that everything is ok, use when first try fails (F712 work only on 500g 7200.11 with firmware SD15, when you updated f/w just skip this part)

------------------------------------------

F3 2>/ (enter)

F3 T>F712 (enter)

Byte:0712: RealTimeUpdatedFlags = 00 00

Byte:0712: Bit:0, HPA_SET_BY_SETMAX = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:1, HPA_SET_BY_SETMAX_EXT = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:2, DCO_SET_ACTIVE = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:3, CONGEN_READ_FROM_MEDIA = 0 <- configuration not loaded from surface

F3 T>F,,22 (enter)

Drive Configuration restored to defaults.

F3 T>F712 (enter)

Byte:0712: RealTimeUpdatedFlags = 08 00

Byte:0712: Bit:0, HPA_SET_BY_SETMAX = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:1, HPA_SET_BY_SETMAX_EXT = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:2, DCO_SET_ACTIVE = 0

Byte:0712: Bit:3, CONGEN_READ_FROM_MEDIA = 1 <- done

F3 T3>

F3 T3>/1 (enter)

Go to smart erase

------------------------------------------------------

Next go to Level 1 (type /1):

F3 2>/1 (enter)

F3 1>

And do a S.M.A.R.T. erase (create S.M.A.R.T. sector):

F3 1>N1 (enter)

Which will simply return the level one prompt

F3 1>

-----------------------------------------------------------

This step is not needed, but for some people it might be.

At this point, you need to disconnect the SATA power cable from the drive and wait one minute. Yes, count to sixty. Then plug the SATA Power cable back into the drive.

Now back in HyperTerminal, you'll need to hit CTRL-Z to get a fresh prompt

F3 T>

-------------------------------------------------------

Now Type

F3 1>/ (enter). It should say

F3 T>

Finally, do partition regeneration:

F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 (enter) (Note the "m" is lower case and the 0's are zeros)

After 15-30 seconds, you should see something like:

Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 00, Max Certify Rewrite Retries = 00C8

User Partition Format 10% complete, Zone 00, Pass 00, LBA 00004339, ErrCode 00000080, Elapsed Time 0 mins 05 secs

User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 05 secs

Do not turn off drive until you see this message.

Once seen, drive can be turned off.

Power down everything, place drive back into your computer, and confirm that it's working.

I successfully unlocked my drive.

I can confirm that this method works.

Now some people say that their computers can not boot from drives.This is because of a virus.It sits in the SMOS on the mainboard.If you have this problem you must clear the SMOS and it will die.Look in the manual for your mainboard how to do this.