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The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs

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KlingKlang

KlingKlang

Posted
Posted

To: valkyrio

Yes. That would work!

People here have been using all kind of cables and adapters.

Most of them have been using Graduis2 adapter since we know it worked.

By the time we have been making progress, more and more adapters are

verified to work. The important thing is that the cable converts "Serial to TTL".

A quick review of the link you posted says that this cable would be perfect for this job.

However, no-one has used as far as i know, but i think it would work perfect.

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CarterInCanada

CarterInCanada

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello folks!

I'm not sure if 94 pages on bricked drives is a good or bad thing but at least we're all in this together. I've been gone for a bit and just caught up on my reading and wanted to say thanks for all the kind words sent along for my little guide over at http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html (as well as the few kind souls that were concerned for me and my mad forest hermit ways during the recent forest fires up here). I just hope it has helped some folks as much as this forum helped me.

There was one question a few pages back about which set of contacts on the drive to insulate before trying to spin down the drive (as opposed to removing the PCB entirely which I think now everyone agrees isn't needed). Several guides out there, including posts in this one originally, suggest the "head" contacts (square on the corner of the drive) whereas I used the "motor" contacts (in the centre of the drive). I originally tried the former with no luck but when I switched to the latter, I was able to go right through the process. I suspect the specific model of the drive might account for the varying degrees of success here. Mine happen to be the 1TB models (ST31000340AS) but listening to all the email reports I've had, it seems to have worked fine on a few others as well.

So, if you have luck with one set and are able to spin down the drive, proceed as usual. If not and you continue to get the busy error report in your terminal session, you might try the other set. There are just too many reports either way to say that one or the other is the definitive fix. Thankfully, I don't see how it can really hurt to try either.

Good luck in all your unbricking out there!!

Cheers,

- CarterInCanada

Edited by CarterInCanada
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dibloff

dibloff

Posted
Posted

Guys. Please help identifying the problem with my drive. It's spinning up and down and clicking, but the BIOS will not see it. Will this fix take care of it's problem?

Off course my warranty is live, but I'm concerned about the data. Seagate won't pay for retraiving my data.

Thanks

A.

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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valkyrio

valkyrio

Posted
Posted
Guys. Please help identifying the problem with my drive. It's spinning up and down and clicking, but the BIOS will not see it. Will this fix take care of it's problem?

Off course my warranty is live, but I'm concerned about the data. Seagate won't pay for retraiving my data.

Thanks

A.

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?

Diblof, how did it happen?

Did it just stop working one day? (And does it have the buggy firmware?)

If it does, and if it just stopped working by itself (and you didn't hit it hoping it would make it spin up again) then just contact seagate, tell them you have a bricked drive, tell them your firmware and your model, and they should cover the data retrieval.

If your drive is actually physically damaged, this fix won't work for you. You'll have to have pay for the hardware fix. You won't be able to fix it yourself.

Do note though, that some clicking is normal, so long as it's not loud clicking.

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jaclaz

jaclaz

Posted
Posted

dibloff,

take a deep breath. ;)

There are 94 pages of this thread basically full of this info:

  1. NO software tool, by Seagate or any other, is capable of reviving a bricked drive
  2. the only known solution is to connect the drive to a TTL level serial and correct the issue through command lines in hyperterminal or a similar app

You (and everyone else coming here for the first time) should take some time to read, or at least skim through the existing pages, you would have probably found these:

http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seagate...-page-1854.html

(up to post #1857)

and thereby given links that would have already answered ALL your questions.

jaclaz

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valkyrio

valkyrio

Posted
Posted
dibloff,

take a deep breath. ;)

There are 94 pages of this thread basically full of this info:

  1. NO software tool, by Seagate or any other, is capable of reviving a bricked drive
  2. the only known solution is to connect the drive to a TTL level serial and correct the issue through command lines in hyperterminal or a similar app

You (and everyone else coming here for the first time) should take some time to read, or at least skim through the existing pages, you would have probably found these:

http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seagate...-page-1854.html

(up to post #1857)

and thereby given links that would have already answered ALL your questions.

jaclaz

Some people just freak out (and some think they're entitled to answers...)

Anyways I'm thankful to everyone who's helped compile this guide. I wish I had known about this sooner. I'm gonna try to repair my drives but I'm somewhat afraid they might've been damaged in the months since they locked up...(9 and 6 months.)

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dibloff

dibloff

Posted
Posted

Guys. Thanks for the help. I don't want to look lazy, but 94 pages is 94 pages. Besides by the time I'll read through that i'll not know sheet from shinola because all the info will be dumped only and not organized.

I built my first rig 10 years ago, all from scratch. Since than I re-soldered resistors on a geforce to make it quadro - piece of cake, swap bios/firmware for any component - not a problem, convert a power supply into water cooled one - any time!!!

but cmon, hacking a hard drive ... it's kinda scary even to think about considering that all my data on it can be corrupted/lost/gone in a great walhalla. I think I'll record the way it sounds over the weekend during boot up and present it here, to see what you guys think.

And off course, i'll read the rest of 94.

Thanks again.

A.

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fasthands

fasthands

Posted
Posted

Hi All,

I have a problem, and I dont know if it is a LBA0 or a BSY error. I bought a Seagate 500GB SATA HDD from a local vendor here, and also bought an external USB casing. The HDD was working fine, and so I copied all my Data from my Samsung 80GB (also in an external USB casing) to the Seagate 500GB. I have around 300GB of data at present on the HDD.

Sometime ago, I had to format my laptop, so I copied all data on the 500GB HDD and formatted my Laptop. After installation, I copied my important data back to my Laptop. The size of the data copied to the laptop is around 50GB. While copying, the HDD suddenly stopped detecting. I tried to power on-off to the USB casing a few times, but it just wouldnt detect, and wheni would power off, it would show in my computer for a fraction of a second.

I must tell you that the data I have is of utmost importance to me, and very confidential. I have almost 10 years worth of data on the HDD. I went home and again tried to connect the HDD, but the problem continued.

The HDD was making a clicking sound, so I asked one of my friends, who told me that the HDD arm must have lost if alignment. Frustated, as I knew that I am not going to send the HDD for recovery, I decided to see if I can do something myself, so I opened the HDD, breaking the Warranty seal, below which, one screw needs to be opened.

Now I had the HDD open. I powered it on, and saw that the arm was travelling halfway across the disk and coming back, making a clicking sound while doing this. So I nudged the arm at the lower end (the body side), and moved it so as to free it. Then when I powered on the drive, The arm was moving all across the disk, and still making the clicking sound.

So I went on to the net and found that there were issues with the HDD. I also checked the seagate serial checker utility and it said that my drive was faulty, and that I had to apply firmware SD1a. I downloaded the SD1a software, but I couldnt apply it as the HDD was not detecting.

I saw all the entries in this forum, and decided to follow the do it yourself setps. I do not have access to the components shown here, so I bought a BAFO BF-810 USB to serial (DB9) converter. The pin sequence is 2,3,5 for TX,RX & GND respectively. Since it is a USB to serial converter, I assume that it is powered by the USB port itself.

I soldered three wires to the 2,3,5 pins, and connected them to the HDD ports as shown in this thread (TX to HDD RX, RX to HDD TX, GND to HDD GND), and configured the hyperterminal client. The DB9 converter is assigned Port COM5 on my system, so I connected it to COM5, and the hyperterminal window says connected, but I do not get a response when I press CTRL+z.

Where am I going wrong? Please help.

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fasthands

fasthands

Posted
Posted

I have taken the precautions. What I want to know is, how to confirm what is the problem with my HDD? also, does the DB9 converter need power or does it power using the USB? Why dont I get any response to CTRL+z in the hyperterminal window?

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valkyrio

valkyrio

Posted
Posted

This is how I knew mine was bugged:

Both my bricked drives are Seagate Barracudas 7200.11, with firmware SD15

Neither one was recognized by the BIOS

They stopped working -for no reason- there was no physical nor software related reason for their lock up. After shutting them down one day, they simply stopped working the next.

That's how the story goes, for pretty much every single bricked drive user. I have a feeling this fix won't help you, since your drive seems to have been damaged physically (the arm). That's all I can say, I've yet to get my cable so I can try to unbrick mine.

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jaclaz

jaclaz

Posted
Posted

A potential physical damage (the arm) will NOT create a connection problem via hyperterminal to the PCB.

Heck, within limits, you can connect to it even after having completely removed the PCB.

This said, it is unlikely that the problem has developed WHILE transferring data (meaning THE firmware problem discussed in the present thread).

The actual cause of the problem, is when a sort of internal "event log" inside the drive reaches a given # of entry 320 or multiples.

Thus it is very likely that it happens at boot (or connection of hard disk) time.

@fasthands

A "normal" USB to SERIAL might not be the appropriate interface.

Read about TTL levels here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seagate...-page-1730.html

In any case perform a loopback test to check that the adapter is actually working:

http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seagate...-page-1661.html

jaclaz

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KlingKlang

KlingKlang

Posted
Posted

You should NEVER EVER open a harddrive, EVER!

You will only damage the drive and make it completely useless!

The dust particles are too big and will damage the heads on the reading arm

making the harddisk a piece of junk. If it will still work, you´re one lucky guy!

The chances are that it is damaged from dust and particles.

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