I've got a ST3500320AS that just stopped working suddenly. I came to my PC to find "delayed write failed". I reconnected the drive and it didn't recognize at all. Restarted computer and same. When I plug the power in, the drive spins up, clicks a few times, then motor turns off. No grinding noise. Never been dropped, or knocked over. The computer does not even acknowledge the drive. I tore apart the Freeagent Desktop to find this drive inside. It's a SD35 firmware and its got a rectangular board. I didn't pay close enough attention and kept trying to talk to the drive from RS232 straight and though protocol is same, it requires TTL, so I ordered Nokia CA-42 knock off. Read that one is a hit and miss, so I ordered a proper Maxim IC based RS232 to TTL converter as well. By a means of using a shim, it says to isolate the contacts to spindle motor on page 6 of this thread. On YouTube, it says to isolate the head/data connection. Which one am I supposed to do?
