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The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs


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Actually Kling, covering either contact seems to work.

For example, on youtube someone used the nokia cable (or whatever it is) and they covered the contacts near the top of the PCB.

I myself used a similar cable and covered the motor contacts

Both of us were successful. According to one guide I read, it seems you can do either, but not both.

I prefer covering the motor contacts because you don't have to take off the whole pcb in order to interrupt the contact. You can just slide in a piece of paper that can be slid out and then the screw re-tightened instead of having to put the whole pcb back on it.

Edited by valkyrio
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Hi everyone, so i try to fix the error again with the Gradius2 instructions, i did everything like he says and when i mean everything its that right :) (btw i sweat like a pig when i screw again the pcb with the power on), i finish all the steps, turn off the pc, swap HDDs and.... THE SAME ERROR "error loading operating system" so now i want to cry for all my data, i dont know what else to do please help me mates! Cheers.

Im just bumping my post to see if anybody can help me, thanks.

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Did you do anything crazy to the drive while it was knocked out? like, punching it, freezing it, etc?

Because tbh it just sounds like it's damaged. I got that error on HDs that were dropped one time too many.

Also, I'm not sure if you answered this or not but did you try accessing the hard drive from another drive? (i.e. setting it as secondary)

And finally, you may have to find help elsewhere, as this no longer sounds like a firmware issue.

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Hi everyone, so i try to fix the error again with the Gradius2 instructions, i did everything like he says and when i mean everything its that right :) (btw i sweat like a pig when i screw again the pcb with the power on), i finish all the steps, turn off the pc, swap HDDs and.... THE SAME ERROR "error loading operating system" so now i want to cry for all my data, i dont know what else to do please help me mates! Cheers.

Im just bumping my post to see if anybody can help me, thanks.

When I completed my drive recovery a few days ago (09/26/09), I ended up having to clear the BSY to get the drive to recognize and then follow up with the 0 LBA fix to be able to access everything.

If you already have run the BSY fix, you don't need to remove the circuit board again to run the 0 LBA fix.

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To Valkyrio,

Thanks for your mini-guide. I un-bricked my drive last night using that FTDI cable and it worked great. Not bad for 20$.

Also thanks to Klingklang,Gradius,aviko, and CarterinCanada for the hard work.

Quick question for those who have Un-bricked your drive.

Did anyone lose any data after flashing the new firmware update SD1A??

Thanks,

Mcq360

Hi!

Just to let you know:

ST31000340AS SD1A 9QJ1FWYF

I did the fix here ... thank gawd for this Forum!

Everything worked fine afterwards.

Suddenly, last week the HardDrive began to studder an' shudder and within 48 hours finally failed entirely.

During my Google Search to discover if anyone else had suffered a similar fate, I was surprised to learn that many are now coming out of the woodwork with the same issue ... it failed ... fixed it ... upgraded Firmware ... HardDrive COMPLETELY died a month 'er so later.

When I say COMPLETELY DIED ... that's it exactly.

Where before the fix, BIOS would not recognize the HardDrive; now I have a problem where BIOS recognizes the HardDrive but Windows stalls out when the HardDrive is being loaded at StartUp ... and, occasionally when the HardDrive manages to get past the Windows StartUp, it remains inaccessible due to an "IO Error".

An attempted recovery using PTTD and also other reliable Recovery Software miserably failed.

I am not a Hard Drive Mechanic, but as near as I can tell after two days of trying to solve the mess so that I could maybe recover the data is this: The HardDrive continues to spin ... no clicking noises as experienced before the Fix as described in this Forum ... but the Sectors evidently have become inexplicably/completely corrupted.

When attempting to restore the Partition Data using EASEUS Partition Recovery Wizard, the "time required" indicated over five hundred hours needed. My math tells me this is something like twenty days. After 5 hours of operation, the time had hardly changed ... so, obviously a lost cause.

After I had fixed my HardDrive according to the instructions here, I asked if it was necessary to discard the HardDrive and the answer was "No". All the same, I was saving up some money to purchase a new HardDrive so that I could back-up the newly fixed one. At this point, a month or so later, I unfortunately ran out of time ... the HardDrive has completely and utterly failed.

And, I am not the only one stating this experience on the Web.

So, if I was a person who fixed their Seagate HardDrive by using the instructions here, I would make plans ASAP to back it up ... don't wait like I did ... it could suddenly fail again ... and much worse a failure than earlier experienced.

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I would have contacted Gradius2 about this.

Seems to be another software failure (ahh, the good old amiga days...).

Chances are that Gradius2 can fix it, since i guess it´s a software related.

Can you connect to the hdd again, with hyperterminal and so on?

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Just fixed my 750gb drive !!

My first purchase of the ca 42 cable was a dud, then got another.. had 5 wires, but did not need external power like others said. Just connected the tx/rx to the hdd and executed the commands on hyperterminal.

I forgot to reset the power of the hdd before running the user format command.. and was anxiously waiting for half an hour.. while nothing happened! Scared the hell out of me.. finally reset the power of the hdd and then it worked just fine.

Thanks for this topic!

Did read some comments on drives failing later, so will backup each and everything!

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Hi!

Just to let you know:

ST31000340AS SD1A 9QJ1FWYF

I did the fix here ... thank gawd for this Forum!

Everything worked fine afterwards.

Suddenly, last week the HardDrive began to studder an' shudder and within 48 hours finally failed entirely.

During my Google Search to discover if anyone else had suffered a similar fate, I was surprised to learn that many are now coming out of the woodwork with the same issue ... it failed ... fixed it ... upgraded Firmware ... HardDrive COMPLETELY died a month 'er so later.

When I say COMPLETELY DIED ... that's it exactly.

I am sorry to hear about your experience. :(

But you seem to have a "wrong" start point.

A disk drive, ANY disk drive, is NOT "invulnerable" and NOT "everlasting".

Fixing the firmware defect this thread is about, fixes that firmware defect and nothing else, the drive is NOT made invulnerable, nor it gets "super powers" through the procedure.

Drives FAIL.

They do fail for any reason in the world (and even one more).

The fail unpredictably (don't get confused by all the fuzz about S.M.A.R.T., it is simply NOT smart, or not smart enough).

There are NO real studies on the matter, AFAIK, if not the known one by Google:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6376021.stm

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/02/8917.ars

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

NOT having a backup of important data is exactly like playing Russian roulette with a Derringer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derringer

;)

We are now at post #196x on this thread, with 621,958 views, and more than 8 months have passed since first post.

I reckon that, taking into account unuseful/duplicated posts, the other guides around, people doing the fix without reporting it, the number of drives that have been fixed "DIY" can be estimated in anything between 1,000 and 100,000.

If we take the lower estimated boundary of 1,000 drives, we would need at least 45 reports of "afterfix" failures to "get even" with the Google study statistical analisys, which rates around 2,5% in the first 3 months and around 2% additionally in the nect 6 to 9 months.

Since it is the lower boundary we estimated, I would expect more likely something in the over 100 reports to give to the failure a statistical significance and allowing the connection with the LBA0 or BSY fixes.

I have seen reports of dead drives that were RMAed and fixed/replaced by Seagate itself, so I personally would not link the "bricking/debricking" with a later failure.

I mean it is of course possible, but not probable, at least with the data vailable.

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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Many thanks to all of you ! I've recovered my ST31000333AS with all data from the BSY state with your help (I used a nokia ca42 cable). I've been patient and it worked

What should I do now to upgrade my firmware (I have at the moment SD35) and obviously I have the same question as Aquafire in post 1953 page 98 ?

Nothing on the Seagate website ... Do I really need to upgrade with this so difficult to find sd3b firmware ? if yes, where can I find it please ?

Many thanks again

JP

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Many thanks to all of you ! I've recovered my ST31000333AS with all data from the BSY state with your help (I used a nokia ca42 cable). I've been patient and it worked

What should I do now to upgrade my firmware (I have at the moment SD35) and obviously I have the same question as Aquafire in post 1953 page 98 ?

Nothing on the Seagate website ... Do I really need to upgrade with this so difficult to find sd3b firmware ? if yes, where can I find it please ?

Many thanks again

JP

AFAIK it is not available for download, it is sent to "elected" people (those that happen to have a drive Serial Number that Seagate thinks is affected).

Call Seagate.

Tell them you need it.

Try convincing them.

File should be named :unsure::

brinks-3d6h-sd3b.iso

as Aquafire reported.

You might try how lucky you are with Google, but I would check with Seagate first.

It is not clear whether this update is actually needed, in the past Seagate did release "bad" updates, maybe, just maybe, your best option is:

  • get another drive
  • backup everything
  • live the firmware as is (untill it is clear whether an update is needed or not)

jaclaz

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Hi @ all,

I'm very happy to find a forum like this. I tried a lot of things to reactivate my Seagate 7200.11 (ST3500320AS). And I think it is effected of BSY state to. I ordered a CA-42 Cable but now I stuck. I don't know which of these cables is the right one (TX RX GND) I added 2 pictures of the cable.

01102009037fex9.jpg 01102009038qci7.jpg

I would be happy if someone could answer me.

With best regards PDogg :hello:

PS is it like in post 1945 on page 98?

Edited by PDogg
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@KlingKlang Thx for the fast answer. How can I match the pin to color? Or do you mean that I have to test which pin is on which connector?

THX PDogg

Pdogg i think i have the exact same cable. Do you have a plastic cover under the blue rubber?

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