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The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs


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Forget (for the moment) the 1848 posts.

Read FIRST post ONLY.

These lines ONLY (lines #6, #7 and #8 of FIRST post:

....

There are two common errors on Seagate 7200.11 HDDs (caused by bugs on firmware):

- 0 LBA error: it happens when your BIOS can recognize your HDD at POST moment, but as an 0MB drive.

- BSY error: it happens when your HDD enter on a halt state, or BuSY state. In this condition, your HDD will not be recognized by BIOS at POST moment.

....

Now, WHICH is the difficult part? :unsure:

You NEED to hook the drive directly to the motherboard to check how BIOS sees it (or fails to).

If it sees it, but with 0 size, it's 0 LBA, if it cannot see it is EITHER:

  • a defective cable
  • a defective connector
  • a defective PCB of the drive
  • a defective controller on the motherboard

OR

  • a BSY

If you checked:

  • the cable
  • the connectors (with a multimeter for obvious )
  • the PCB of the drive (no, I am joking ;), you cannot test this, let's assume you did and it's functional )
  • the motherboard controller (with an other disk)

and everything was well, THEN

it's a BSY error.

:hello:

jaclaz

Thanks Jaclaz,

Well forgotten everything from the so many posts. Just tell me :

If it is in BSY or BUSY state, can it or does it makes clicking sounds. (Not very loud clicks like media failures but clicks like the motor spins up head try to initialize and the spin back and keep repeating the same thing)

Can a USB to UART or USB to Serial cable like Nokia DKU-5 be used without the orange 3.3V power.

Thanks again for being so helpful.

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Just tell me :

If it is in BSY or BUSY state, can it or does it makes clicking sounds. (Not very loud clicks like media failures but clicks like the motor spins up head try to initialize and the spin back and keep repeating the same thing)

Can a USB to UART or USB to Serial cable like Nokia DKU-5 be used without the orange 3.3V power.

Thanks again for being so helpful.

Sure it can, that's the "normal" behaviour of any "just powered up" drive, though I would call it more "purring", besides not reading all the posts, put also some ears protectors on, and boot the PC with the drive connected, can the BIOS detect it?

If yes, you have NOT the BSY.

If no, you probably have the BSY.

If you have a "real" clicking sound, it may be something else, but if you go back a little:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry881140

you will find that user Greenie17, after some initial misunderstandings:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=881318

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=882303

Succeeded:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=fi...&pid=882373

About the DKU-5 or whatever other Nokia/telephone cable, there are two schools of thoughts:

  • some people (and myself) think that one is ALREADY risking a bit too much in doing this and that adding in the recipe a "non-standard" cable/converter is an additional risk, and that recommend "proper", documented interfaces
  • some people think (and have had various degrees of success) that using the "non-standard" cables is OK
  • a few people (who can afford it or that have invaluable data lost) think that we are all a bunch of crazy guys :ph34r: and that the only way out is a professional service

A few pages back there is a COMPLETE review of the various "Nokia" cables:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...807&st=1756

Once you have determined whether you have probably a BSY or not, do as dencorso suggested and start reading the whole thread. :)

AND these ones:

http://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/

http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html

:hello:

jaclaz

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Ayrox:

Have you checked your settings in hyperterminal?

It should be set to 38400, 8-n-1, no flowcontrol.

Have you checked the pin-out with a multimeter? Check the previous page to get correct the pin-out.

You must know which cable that is Rx and Tx.

I had to connect GND to the harddrive in order to get the hdd talking to me.

It is strange if you still wouldn´t get any connection.

Hey KlingKlang thank's a lot for your answers¡¡¡ I tell you that i finally fix my HD, but now i have a problem with the partition with the most important stuff jaja, but the principal problem is fixed thank's to this forum¡¡¡ read you later¡¡¡

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Does anyone here tried to Upgrade Firmware?

without backing up the data (cause i dont have another large HDD to make a backup)

did it cause any data loss?

Thanks

Upgrading firmware should theoretically be a "data safe" procedure. (just imagine, if it was not, the amount of lawsuits against HD manufacturers)

BUT

even if the risk of a data loss is remote, Murphy's Law ALWAYS applies.

Imagine what could happen if any of the following happens WHILE you are upgrading:

  • a mains surge
  • a black-out
  • any number of casual events, including the controller on your board "acting strange" or your cat playing with the cables

and what if any of the above happen AFTER you have updated the firmware and you lose all that data? :w00t:

Better be safe than sorry, if you fixed your brick, you already were lucky enough, apart from this specific Seagate problem, having one single copy of anything on a single hard disk is asking for troubles, you should always have AT LEAST two copies of ANYTHING valuable on AT LEAST two different media/devices.

jaclaz

Yeah, problem is my main board only has 2 SATA slots, and the other HDD isn't that big enough to become the backup of the seagate hdd :(

Dang I guess i need to buy an external HDD, any sugestion of the Brand of External HDD?

Thanks

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Dang I guess i need to buy an external HDD, any sugestion of the Brand of External HDD?

NO.

I am notoriously cheap, so get the cheapest HD you can find and the cheapest external box or adapter. (or the cheapest combo)

I mean, all Hard disk manufacturers are on the market, and they are in competition, their products are very similar, this time Seagate had an hiccup, next time it could be another maker.

Since this is going to be a backup drive, you don't need "top speed" nor "huge cache", and same things goes for the USB or eSATA or whatever converter/adapter/external case.

If you avoid Seagate, the only "good" thing you do is to (fractionally) show them how they behaved "bad" in this occasion.

jaclaz

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Hello Gradius2,

thank you VERY much! My Seagate 7200.11 had the BSY error and is now working again!

Just one issue, it happened perhaps only with my setup. I used COM1 and the same adapter as yours, the one for $13.95 from Sparkfun. First I used +5 V from the computer PS to feed the adapter. It didn't work, got no answer typing CTRL+Z (no prompt). Looking on a scope, the "low" (TX line) wasn't going low enough, not even close to zero. So I used +3,3 V from an adjustable power supply and could see that the "lows" were much closer to zero level. It then worked perfectly and I could enter all commands as per your listings. Have you noticed something similar?

Muchas gracias y saludos de São Paulo, BR!

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I'm trying to use the CA-42 cable but am having lots of trouble despite reading all 94 pages of this thread, the related blogs/posts, googling everything i can think of and going through all sorts of random forums.

I just can't get the cable to work correctly in windows XP.

The hardware ID is

USB\Vid_067b&Pid_2303

I've tried a lot of different drivers for this chip (including prolific, arkmicro, others from forums).

My cable is detected by windows, and the driver that seems to work best is the one off the Prolific website.

However it always has the yellow exclamation mark and says device unable to start.

It seems to select COM4, and I set its parameters correctly.

Hyperterminal will not let me choose COM4 (as the drivers aren't working).

Anyone have any advice or know some better drivers?

I'm not sure what to do. I don't have any machines left with COM ports so need to try to get this USB working.

My cable says made in china, SN: WTO48000317

It has 3 wires (white, green, blue).

It's exactly the same as the one shown in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FztWJVxbM

Even with the little red loop back wires.

In the video he doesn't mention where he got his drivers from, but it shows Motorola Comp Modem drivers being installed.

I've tried to find these but with no success so far.

Thanks

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hi all

i have a little problem

the hard drive makes no sound :/ and of course no response in the hyper-terminal

i used a usb to ttl converter so it's auto powered by the usb port...

when i cross the wire Rx and Tx I have a response but when i connect it to the drive, nothing :/

does anybody have a solution ?

Edited by OliKel
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Ok followup.

Unfortunately nitrohelix didn't install a driver but her windows detected it with an existing driver.

I retried some of the prolific ones I had from forums and their website with no luck.

Good news is I finally found a driver that WORKED! :)

I got it from:

http://the-stickman.com/general/irda-usb-s...troller-driver/

the USB2Serial_Drivers-Dynex file (although I think the other one DX-UBDB9_Drivers is exactly the same)

I installed it by right clicking the SERWPL.INF and selecting install.

Then right click and install SER2PL.INF.

Then plugged in the cable and it worked.

I managed to fix my BSY state error on my hard drive and get all my data back, which has made me sooo happy :)

Only issue I'm facing now is updating the firmware.

For some reason it won't detect my drive correctly.

I put in my serial number on the seagate site, downloaded their iso and burnt it.

It says something like looking for ST31000340NS, no match it found ST31000340NS...

Update:

So although my hard drive did have the BSY state error and the serial number in the seagate check tool confirms my drive needs the firmware update, they don't seem to provide one for my part number.

ST31000340NS

P/N: 9CA158-271

Firmware: RS01

So I guess I'll have to wait for seagate support to answer my email, but I have a bad feeling they're going to say they don't support it.

Update:

Yeh apparently the RS01 firmware was written by some other company so they can't update it.

Edited by novack
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Hi Everybody. I saw this fix on youtube first, then I searched for this forum. Thanks for Gradius for putting together this comprehensive guide. I've got a Seagate Barracuda 7200 last December. It's a 1 TB model with the following properties: S/N: 9TE0STK3 / ST31000333AS / P/N: 9FZ136-336 / Firmware: SD35 / Date Code: 09191

From the date code I can see it's probably a bad one (Nov 11 2009 - so it's before January 12, 2009). I've got two other drives installed on an ABIT AN7 IDE port, and this Seagate on a SIL SATA 3112. First I thought it's the firmware but I can't swap the firmware since my sata controller will not recognize my drive. When I'm trying to boot windows it'll boot forever, and never finish it. I tried Seagate too, they told if it's clicking it's not covered by the firmware issue warranty...

I tried to figure out what is wrong and found a firmware update is available for this issue. I downloaded it and try to execute (I downloaded the firmware for my ST31000333AS S/N model). When I see the seagate notification after the computer boots up I chose the "Y" option, but it did not let me to choose a hard drive, or to proceed any further with the firmware flashing process, instead it tries to start windows, and freezes up again.

During all this time I can hear the head inside clicking in ~,every 5 seconds. I continues to spin up and down in the meantime.

I downloaded SEeaTools and burned a CD. Disconnected all my other drives and booted from CD. The seagate drive spins up, and keeps clicking. SeaTools for DOS tries to scan for a hard drive but it says: "No hard drive found ..." "Detected 0 Devices" . Before that it says: "Scanning for devices on SIL 3112" which tells me it is able to see my motherboard SATA controller.

Anyone has an idea of what could be the real problem with my HD and if this solution listed by Gradius will work on it?

Your all help is greatly appreciated.

A.

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To: dibloff

I can´t remember that my drive was clicking.

The "clicking" could be an hardware error.

My harddrive just disappeared when booting one day.

I´m pretty sure that my drive wasn´t "clicking" and i don´t think

it was spinning up and down.

I tried Seagate too, they told if it's clicking it's not covered by the firmware issue warranty...

No, but it should be covered by hardware warranty. I think seagate has 1 years. But then again, do they care? :)

You do have warranty until 2013... Check link.

https://store.seagate.com/webapp/wcs/stores...urnOrderItemAdd

I think that you can do the fix in order to get the drive detected in bios.

I would however in you position, get a second opionion by someone else here.

What do you thinks guys?

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Hi, I don't know if it's appropriate for me to ask (or if someone's asked before) but I had someone tell me that it was possible to fix the drive using only one cable (this one: http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_pag...products_id=70) and then go through with all the commands through the hyper terminal.

Is that actually possible, has anyone done it? Or do you actually have to buy all those adapters that Gradius's guide uses?

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