v71

Well, that should make you a 76 US$ poorer, BUT 0.5 Tb richer , thus nonetheless happy bunny! http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128727&st=10jaclaz Aha well, thanks once again jaclaz and good luck to everyone in the forum. goodbye

Yes, in case I have a purely thoeretical explanation. When the firmware is running "normally", it checks the presence of heads and motors and if it can't find them goes in an "isolation" mode, i.e. if any of heads or motor is not found an instruction is executed that shuts off the serial interface.When a BSY (but not as seen a LBA0) occurs, the firmware "loops" in a more restricted set of instruction that do not comprehend the check for heads and motor, and thus though still running, the procesor never reaches the instructon "shut off the serial". Yes, this was a good "theoretical" one In fact very useful, thank you Well, practice showed that issuing the m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 command on Level 3 was unsuccessful: F3 3>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 Invalid Diag Cmd (ah, forgot, also unsuccessful was the F3 T>m0,2,2,,,,,22 but I think at this point it just doesn't matter...) What the heck, HDD lost, but I had the most important things backed up - so, I just went and bought an open box 2TB Seagate(7200.14) for 76USD and that's it jaclaz, mille grazie di tutto, incurante dal risultato (hopefully no mistakes)

Jacklaz, thanks. - Unfortunately it is not working detached, but surprisingly it does work attached, which is a bit of contradiction in itself, I think, well it already becomes a theoretical one - GROUNDING - wellllll, I did write that I checked ALL the cables and they were fine OK, but I did not write about each of them. To be fair, though and report comprehensively - I did check and re-check Grounding as well, it was ok, but thanks for reminding. - I'll try it from level 3 and report later. Thanks for taking care and answering, really appreciated! v71

Possibly, yes (as far as we know ). But it is the first case I ever recalled of a 7200.11 not responding to CTRL+Z when board entirely detached (or with one or the other set of contacts insulated). There is only one other reference I could find similar to your case: http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/HDD/seagate-topik-7200-sujet_796558_116.htm Having attempted the PCB swap may have compromised the situation, but you were EXTREMELY lucky that somehow you are having that error, see what happens with m0,1,1,2,2,0,0,22: The COM4 v s. COM1 is a non-issue it is simply the driver that maps the COM as COM4. Are you sure that everything is connected and grounded properly? Have you tried the 1 minute disconnection from power as in http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html ? : jaclaz Yes, strange, but real. Rechecked all connections, all good, rx goes to tx and viceversa, ground and vcc connected correctly - still, if Motor or Head are disconnected (or PCB totally removed), no reaction to CTRL-Z. BTW saw that post on the french forum myself, I was hoping at that time that it might be a solution, it turned out it wasn't. As for 1 minute disconnection - I never get to this part, since it should come after SMART erase command - the Hyperterminal shows an error when I want to do the SMART erase. Here: F3 1>N1 Init SMART Fail LED:000000CC FAddr:00239CED LED:000000CC FAddr:00239CED And after that error I have to disconnect anyway, since it doesn't react to CTRL-Z anymore (in fact it doesn't react to anything). So I did disconnect, just not at the right step, I think. ...Stuck.

Sorry, coming late to the discussion. Have the ST31500341AS for some time and it died long time ago. Did not have time to take care of it until now. Recently saw an option - PCB exchange. Did that, but no luck. Realised that i started from a wrong direction - only after PCB exchange had a look at BIOS. I know, no excuses. The HDD showed 0GB in BIOS. So, it should be LBA0 (at least in theory solvable) Then i read the following forums/threads: - Canadian suggeste also in jaclaz post http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html - MSFN jaclaz Rad-me-1st http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/143880-seagate-barracuda-720011-read-me-first/ - This one - The Solution for Seagate7200.11 HDDs http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/ Bought a USB to TTL adapter. Installed HyperTerminal on Win7x64. Connected the HDD. 1. If any of the connections (motor or head, this one being suggested in other formus as well) is covered with cardboard HDD would not react at all to any CTRL-Z. 2. HDD does react to CTRL-Z only when both motor+head are in contact with PCB. 3. Hyperterminal reacts to COM4, not to COM1 (on COM1 no sign of life). Tried RealTerm to no response at any options. 4. Hyperterminal (only with Head and Motor connected) allows to shift to /1 or /2 levels and /T level, to spin down or up the HDD etc. 5. But as soon as I reach the F3 1>N1 it gives and error Init SMART Fail LED:000000CC FAddr:00239CED LED:000000CC FAddr:00239CED 6. Errors (DiagError 0000500D) appear when trying: a.) F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 00, Max Certify Rewr ite Retries = 0000 DiagError 0000500D User Partition Format Failed - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs R/W Sense 00000002, R/W Error 00000084, File Error 00001002 Blk Addr 7B400001, Blk Addr Type D0, Cyl FFFD0000, Hd 80 b.) Same error appeared when i tried F3 T>m0,1,1,2,2,0,0,22 c.) at the end tried even F3 T>m0,1,1,0,0,0,0,22 All of them gave the same error. 7. Tried G-List erase ( i4,1,22) and entire BSY, just in case. nothing. when it comes to N1 or m0,etc it gives erros. Should I proclaim it dead:)?