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The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs


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About a week ago I helped another person over e-mail that also tried to install

a CA-42 cable (but he didn't have the phone, so the installer failed).

He has been tinkering along and finally succeeded, here's what he said (in Dutch):

Het is gelukt!!!

Ik heb uiteindelijk in een laatste poging en in een helder moment de juiste manier

gevonden om de kabel te installeren.

(oorzaak: op de installatie cd stond enkel een menu voor de installatie van de Nokia

suite; geen menu item voor de kabel driver.

Na wat zoeken op de cd vond ik uiteindelijk een map met de juiste bestanden).

Ik heb daarna netjes de commando's van Gradius kunnen ingeven en ik kan nu

de HDD terug gebruiken.

Translated to English:

I did it!!!

In a last attempt and in a bright moment I found the right way to install the cable.

(Cause: on the installation CD there was only an installer for the Nokia suite;

there wasn't a menu item to only install the driver for the cable.

After browsing the CD I found a folder with the right files for the driver.

Then I could perfectly perform the commands described by Gradius and am able to

use the HDD again.

I suggest you fully uninstall the Nokia drivers and suite, restart your computer

(in case your COM-port is still left in use) and try to find that folder on the CD

this guy is talking about, to install the drivers manually.

Then try to open a session in HyperTerminal again.

To be on the safe side (and to check whether you're using the correct wires, RX and

TX), do a loopback test first by joining the RX and TX leads together and typing

something on the keyboard while in HyperTerminal: the characters you type should be

echood back on the screen.

Good luck,

Peter.

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Tried manually installing the driver and the result is the same.

The cable driver appears to be installed correctly, it shows up in the device manager under PORTS as "Nokia CA-42 USB (COM2)", but I still get the "Unable to Open COM2. Please Check Your Port Settings" message. I've tried this on two different computers running windows xp.

This is frustrating, I feel like I'm so close to getting all of my data back!

UPDATE: Just noticed my cable doesn't have a "made in" sticker on it. I'm now ordering one that says "made in China".

Edited by bigleg
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can i use diodes of 3 V for shema of rs232 to ttl ? or diodes must be 2.7 V ?

thanx !

Which schematics?

Which diodes?

If you mean the poorman's way depicted here (among tens of others):

http://picprojects.org.uk/projects/simpleSIO/ssio.htm

http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2007/06/11/ttl-to-rs232-adaptor-explained/

http://techref.massmind.org/techref/io/serial/ttl2rs232.htm

There is ONE diode and it is a 1N4148 or 1N4001, the most "generic" diodes around, that you can replace with almost anything

http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/component_replacements.html

Personally:

  • I wouldn't use a 1N4001 (i.e. any rectifying diode as it may be too slow)
  • if I were you I would buy a pre-made interface or kit (if you have to ask about diodes it means you cannot build one by yourself) you already have a faulty HD, there is not much sense to risk to completely ruining it due to a half-***ed interface

jaclaz

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these diode ;)

Sure :), they are perfectly UNneeded, they are simply a (better be safe than sorry ;)) protection against surges or wrong connection/return currents, and CUT the TTL voltage to 2.7V.

Compare with this:

http://elisegt.interfree.it/html/nokia.html

Zener diodes DZ1 and DZ2 are VERY important to safety of Your phone. Normally are values of log. 1 about 3.3V and little overcross of this value can damage the phone - so power blast at turning on computer or connecting interface into computer. DZ1 and DZ2 diodes cuts-down this voltage to 2.7V - it is enough to log. 1 and it is hardly under maximal voltage value.

Since the specs for TTL are for 3.3V BUT up to 5 V can be given, the 3V zeners will anyway protect the interface and device from accidents without causing any problem:

http://www.interfacebus.com/voltage_threshold.html

Most of the Commercial interfaces and of the Max232 schemes around don't have them.

jaclaz

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but I still get the "Unable to Open COM2.

That worries me a bit :unsure:

Normally, a COM-port is only opened when an application (like HyperTerminal) or a service

(like MS ActiveSync or the Nokia Suite) is actively using it; if you would only install

the drivers without any program (or service) using it, you *should* be able to open that

port like any other ("real") COM-port, no matter where the USB-device was made...

Are you sure it's using COM2, since with most desktops, these are already integrated onto

the motherboard and any external attached (USB)-ports get additional numbers (COM3..COMxx).

Please check the settings in the computer's BIOS whether any on-board COM-ports are enabled

or not and play with these settings.

Good luck,

Peter.

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Apparently :unsure:

I hope you're not trying to apply power to your drive while it's connected to the SATA-port

to your computer and your computer is turned on? :no:

Because that will most definitively crash your system (unless your motherboard supports hot-

swapping).

First do the fix with only the RS232 <=> TTL convertor connected.

After you've un-bricked it (after carefully following the instructions on the first page of

this topic), you have to power down your computer, connect the drive over SATA, power up your

PC and see if it's recognized in the BIOS.

When it's recognized, see if the BIOS reports it as a 0GB drive.

If it does report as a 0GB drive, do the LBA0 fix (first power off your PC, disconnect SATA

and re-connect the RS232 convertor, then power on your system).

If your BIOS sees it as it should, you will be able to access it again and you can backup

the drive (do this first before you do anything else).

Greetz,

Peter.

Edited by VideoRipper
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I have two of these drives. I screwed up and used someones post here, which left out the REBOOT AFTER N1 step on the first one.

For the second one I went back to page one and used those steps. Thanks! That drive is fine now.

My question is about the first drive. The mis-step I took was issuing these two commands with no hdd reboot in between.


N1
F3 1>m0,2,2,,,,,22

The disk now detects. I can see it in windows, but in disk management it shows up as an uninitialized drive. Is there anyway I can recover data from it now? What exactly did I do with the F3 1>m0,2,2,,,,,22?

ANY help is appreciated!!!

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I just used a cheap CA-42 cable off of eBay.. Just make sure you only use the Black (GND), Orange (RS232 TX), and Brown (RS232 RX) wires.

This worked without a hitch on my relatives' 1TB Seagate that was in an Iomega External Case. I was able to recover ALL of the data (which amazed him). Unfortunately, I need to figure out how to force-flash this drive (since it seems to have some different firmware code) so I can reuse it instead of trashing it.

BTW: The cable I bought is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110507181865 . The drivers for it are the Prolific PL-2303 Drivers (I found this out using Linux).

As for "franklink".. You need to *WAIT* until the command prompt reappears. I found that out the hard way. If Windows still wants to reformat it, do the following:

1. Fire up a System Rescue CD (sysresccd.org) on a separate box.

2. Mount the drive and configure Samba to share the drive (if you want to dump via network).

3. Copy everything off of it onto a network share or external drive.

4. Pull it out of the other box and place it back inside your workstation (or server).

5. Reformat and repartition the drive.

6. Copy all the files back onto it (if you want to).

Edited by Simba7
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I have two of these drives. I screwed up and used someones post here, which left out the REBOOT AFTER N1 step on the first one.

For the second one I went back to page one and used those steps. Thanks! That drive is fine now.

My question is about the first drive. The mis-step I took was issuing these two commands with no hdd reboot in between.


N1
F3 1>m0,2,2,,,,,22

The disk now detects. I can see it in windows, but in disk management it shows up as an uninitialized drive. Is there anyway I can recover data from it now? What exactly did I do with the F3 1>m0,2,2,,,,,22?

ANY help is appreciated!!!

As a follow up, I just realized my bios is detecting this drive as 0MB. LBA fix doesn't seem to be helping. I don't think it's the same as the LBA problem since I started out with the BSY problem, and created this 0MB problem after the fact.

Edited by franklink
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