BlouBul

Sorry double-posted accidentally

If you want to try the BSY Fix, just remember to try the right method for ES.2 and NOT the one for the 7200.11.

See FGA In Particular # 7 thx bloubul I will take a look at it...sigh now when I press ctrl + z, nothing happen!! about to give up cuz it's driving me crazy That will be FGA #4

See FGA In Particular # 7

Frequent Given Answers for the 7200.11 We do not normally mind helping people in need, but it does get sometimes a bit tiresome answering the same questions with the same answers, over and over again . But, as has been rightfully said in the Read-Me-First, repetita juvant , so we thought it would be helpful to group those answers together in a shorter FGA thread, to save everyone a bit of time. This often happens because they DO NOT READ first the Read-Me-First or they try to "twist" what is in there to make it "easier" or "more convenient". We do not mind original ideas to make life easier , but sometimes the same (non-workable) ideas pop up time and again. This topic had quite a lot of minds working on it already, and if there were an easier method, we would have told you. Life is tough , very rarely shortcuts work, and TANSTAAFL. Although recovering from a bricked 7200.11 drive SEEMS very complex at first , it is very well documented (the link is now dead, but CarterInCanada's guide -- in .pdf format -- is attached below) and once you came over the initial shock of having to open your HDD and having to fiddle inside with the power on, it is doable by everyone , but you will need some time getting the hang of it before attempting doing it. (Read-Me-First Point #14) More than that, take some time BEFORE posting yet another time the same question, please. 1. I have exactly the same HDD in my other computer. Will a PCB swap work? No. Although that used to work on some older models, in newer HDD's like the Seagate 7200.11, the PCB is specific to the drive and you risk frying both if you try that. 2. Seagate's serial checker says my disk is not affected, (but it is!)... The good people at Seagate are most probably scared stiff of lots of lawsuits, and since they can't deny the bricking of drives, they decided in their infinite wisdom that it would be a good Public Relations exercise to admit that *some* of the 7200.11-series were affected. Since they do not want too many lawsuits, the number that they chose to admit suffering from this firmware bug, is in fact a very small fraction of the total number of affected drives. In fact, as this issue is related to the firmware and not the drive, ALL 7200.11 drives with firmware prior to SD1A are susceptible to this bug and is a time bomb waiting to happen. These include, but are not limited to SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, SD25, SD35 and SD81. If you are one of the "lucky" few whose drive is on the "we admit it is our fault"-list, you *might* be able to convince them to fix your drive AND do your data-recovery for free. The other 99% of you *might* also be able to convince them to fix your drive under guarantee, BUT they will send you a refurbished drive with NO DATA back, as their guarantee covers ONLY your drive, and NOT your data. 3. Will firmware update prevent my drive from bricking again? Yes. If you have firmware SD1A or later (HP26 if you have an HP drive), your computer will be immune to this bug. To be sure nothing else is wrong with it, you can test it by using Seagate's SeaTools (Read-Me-First Point #5) 4. Ctrl Z doesn't work... Did you do a Loopback test? (See Read-Me-First Point #8) A Loopback test will tell you if your converter can talk to itself. You can't expect your converter to talk to your HDD if it cannot talk to itself. A successful Loopback test will show you that you have a working converter that is set up correctly and you have correctly identified the Rx and Tx wires (they might be the wrong way around, but that is not critical at this stage) After a successful Loopback test, you can connect your converter to your HDD. If you still do not get a signal after Ctrl-Z, try switching Tx and Rx around. Make sure your HDD is powered. Make sure your PCB is not connected by isolating either the Motor or Head contacts. Also make sure you have a 3.3V converter and NOT a 5V converter (Read-Me-First Point #10). Check grounding (Read-Me-First Point #7). 5. My Loopback test failed. What is wrong? Make sure you have the right driver installed. Is your converter seen as a port in your Device Manager and HyperTerminal? Make sure you have correctly identified the Rx and Tx wires. Does your converter need to be powered? Did you set up your HyperTerminal session correctly? If all that fails, your converter might not be working. 6. I know Nokia cables are frowned upon, but I happen to have a CA-42 cable with driver cd lying around in the "things that may be of use some day" drawer, and have nothing to lose in trying it . I also do understand that some Nokia Converters work and others not, but do have some free time on my hands and am willing to risk it. How do I set it up and identify which wire is which? (Obviously at my own risk...) It is normally a good idea to first plug the cable (without a phone connected to the other end) into your computer's USB port. If your computer starts to install drivers automatically for the cable (not necessarily the correct ones, those you will get from the driver cd), you have a good chance of having a "working cable". That way you won't end up decapitating a perfectly good (for other things) cable that might not work to unbrick your HDD. Once you have determined that you have a *probably* working cable you can try to figure out which wires is which. A good method is given here. Only follow the method till after the "sanity check your findings" part. Thereafter you can connect it to your HDD. 7. I get all kinds of gibberish and random characters on my screen when I connect my converter to my HDD. Check grounding. (Read-Me-First Point #7) Also make sure that the connections between your converter and HDD are insulated and do not touch each other. A special thanks should go to jaclaz, since most of the above answers have been learned through his numerous posts. Other people who also contributed to my better understanding of the subject include, but are not limited to, gradius2, Aviko, CarterInCanada, Mundy5 and VideoRipper. -BlouBul Fixing the Seagate Bricks by Carter in Canada.pdf

Thanks jaclaz, PM sent. You are of course welcome to elaborate and to add a couple more

I agree with your reasoning. It is just that some of the obvious things (like you cannot do a PCB swap on newer hdd's like the 7200.11) are being asked again and again and again and... Just thought that *might* reduce those questions

Did you type F3 T>mo,2,2,,,,,22 or F3 T>m0,2,2,,,,,22 There should be a 0(zero) after the m and not an o Maybe you should put that also in the READ-ME-FIRST (although that is normally read last). That is normally asked time and again. Maybe also the buffalo-wiki link for the people who don't listen to warnings (or live in the middle of nowhere and cannot get another converter)

Great. Now at least you can copy your important files somewhere safe. Do you have an old Norton on your computer. That has been reported to sometimes cause similar problems when not properly uninstalled. http://www.d-a-l.com/help/windows-xp-help/66487-cant-open-folders-my-computer.html

No problem, was a bit busy myself this week. I'll see you there. Another option is to rather start a new thread about disk imaging and then move back to the respective threads thereafter. (That might help future searches on the topic)

All SD25 firmware is affected. I think you are right about it being a separated problem in the beginning, but if it is now constantly not being recognised in bios, it *might* now be suffering from BSY. A good place to start is where you will get all the details of what is wrong and how to fix your drive.

That's strange. Can you copy folders to your working drive? Does it work in safe mode? Can you access the folders in your other drive?

Your drive is not bricked. Different symptoms and SD1A is immune against the bug. Give us more details of what exactly the symptoms are. When you try to open folders, does it open and show empty or doesn't it open at all? If you rightclick - properties, does it show the right size?

Hi h2ofun, I would first try switching Rx and Tx around, that is normally the cause for Ctrl Z not to work. As for the Voltage, I do not know that converter, maybe it is a jumper setting, maybe it picks it up automatically. Did it come with a manual? No problem if you power it from a different computer, BUT if you power it from a different computer, you must connect ALL your grounds together. That can also cause Ctrl Z not to work. See also Point #7.

No Prob. I was also a bit busy yesterday. And to top that, I made my hdd not bootable. I always had a MBR Error 3 when I boot up, but since everything still worked, I didn't worry too much. A quick google search didn't help too much, so I left it... Trying to be good on Friday, I took my hdd to work, put it as an xtra ide hdd in my work computer and imaged it again (this time "dead" as oppose to live). While trying to extract the image to the external, I did it on my internal (the "same" one as the image) as well. It didn't worry me too much, as it should end up as the same as previous and thought it would be a good method of testing. Then I did the same on my external. It still did not want to boot even though I tried karionix's method. (missing operating system or something like that. The I tried to boot from the IDE drive. This time it stops after the MBR Error 3 and doesn't want to boot! I thought it might have been something with the different computer being an AMD (I read somewhere that fix didn't work so well with AMD's). When I came home my home pc also didn;t want to boot from that hdd. I sort of expected that, so brought a dvd drive home and reinstalled Windows and everything (I have a full image of all my data now, and I have been putting a full format and reinstall off for a while now as I wanted to get rid of all the accumulated junk.) Will try to image the newly formatted drive now and see if I have better results now. The MBR Error 3 at least is gone now. (think I killed a fly with a sledgehammer, but at least it worked) When I did the image "dead", I did a sector-by sector image, but opt not to do the free space. I guess that made the image not so "dumb" anymore and put a spanner in the works. Next time I'll try to image everyting..

Reading your link (and links from your link), I have to agree. But still think it is doable (even for me) I'll take my hdd to work tomorrow and put it as a second internal hdd in my work computer to do a better clone. I thought Acronis had a way to do it, especially as it didn't complain, but was obviously mistaken I'll try karionix's method with the new image... Thanks, you have helped a lot with that link. You are not terse - one link is worth a thousand words!

Hi dencorso, I tried it so long using Acronis True Image 2011 and Disk Director 11. I made a full sector by sector image of my disk, while running the computer from same disk (as my cd drive is not currently working). I partitioned my 2TB external HDD in 2x 500GB and 1 x 863 GB partitions. I restored the Image to the one empty 500 GB partition and set the partition as primary and active. Then I set my computer to boot from USB first to see if the Image work, but for some reason it is not bootable. What am I doing wrong? Can you boot from an external hdd?

If you download from here: http://indygizmo.com/download-officetab-for-microsoft-word-excel-powerpoint/ it says: with nothing in the EULA about shareware or trials... The extendoffice website, however, says quite clearly: That is a bit confusing, but I guess it will die after 30 days.

Hi JorgeA They did not even said so in the EULA, but I was a bit suspicious when it said it can only be used on one computer... After I installed it, I checked the About tab, and there was the option to register. That took me to the extendoffice website (your link) Nowhere in that site or EULA they mentioned anything about it being a trial or shareware or that I have to pay for it at some future date Anyway, so far so good. will know in a month's time how much functionality will be disabled...

Yes, it is quite a cool app. Reading through the fine print, it seems that there is a difference between free download and freeware I think my link is also only free to try. Anyway, it might still be worth it. It is working well so far...

Good Find, JorgeA Since I'm a bit cheap, you made me look for a freeware version of it http://techblissonline.com/free-microsoft-word-document-tabs/

Is your converter set for 3.3V or 5V? The 5V can't always talk to the hdd. Also try switching Rx and Tx around.

Thanks, that will be appreciated.

H giotto75 There was just one very unconfirmed report of a 7200.10 drive which *might* have suffered from BSY (or might just have been too hot), being fixed. Even the OP admitted that there was some alcohol involved... No-one since managed to do that here. There is some info from other sources in the post above yours. If you manage to fix it, please give us feedback on exactly how you did it, since no-one here knows.

Glad to hear and you're welcome Yes. Also do Seatools Tests to see if you can RMA it. See http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/143880-seagate-barracuda-720011-read-me-first/page__pid__922610#entry922610 Point 5.