The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs

[MadOCer]

...

Yes I'm sure because i use it to conect with phones and its working.I try to change RX and TX but its not comunicate.I try with HDD connect to see is it give me that error LED:.... but nothing

Post pictures of your setup. Without details there is no way to tell where the problem is. We're no psyhchics after all.

[Janooo]

...

it was adapter which have 21.8V without connection and when it is connected it is 18.5V. this numbers i get by measurement, but on this adapter it is Input 230V~50Hz 140mA Output 12V - 1A. Can you tell me how it is looking that diode, or how exactly i can fix it?

Thank you

The question is: What are the correct power suppply specifications. Just telling me some numbers, without stating which one is the correct and which one the wrong power supply, doesn't really help much. if you did that, then we can talk about the diode, if this talk is necessary at all then.

Hi,

I conect HDD like you say with com port to RS232 and RS232 to TTL(i use this circuit to conect phone and i don't have any problems there).But here i don't have any comunations with HDD though Hiper terminal or other programs which I use to connect with phones.I chek everything and its like you say.

Do you have any idea what my be the problem.

Thanks!

Are you sure that the adapter is working? Try the loopback test. If that works, you probably have connected RX and TX the wrong way on the HDD.

i amke meauserement and this 21.8V - 18.5V was this which i used accidentali and correct have 14.2V it showed it when i measured it without connection and with connection to external hdd. i hope it is everything what you need.

Thank you for patience

[MadOCer]

...

it was adapter which have 21.8V without connection and when it is connected it is 18.5V. this numbers i get by measurement, but on this adapter it is Input 230V~50Hz 140mA Output 12V - 1A. Can you tell me how it is looking that diode, or how exactly i can fix it?

Thank you

The question is: What are the correct power suppply specifications. Just telling me some numbers, without stating which one is the correct and which one the wrong power supply, doesn't really help much. if you did that, then we can talk about the diode, if this talk is necessary at all then.

Hi,

I conect HDD like you say with com port to RS232 and RS232 to TTL(i use this circuit to conect phone and i don't have any problems there).But here i don't have any comunations with HDD though Hiper terminal or other programs which I use to connect with phones.I chek everything and its like you say.

Do you have any idea what my be the problem.

Thanks!

Are you sure that the adapter is working? Try the loopback test. If that works, you probably have connected RX and TX the wrong way on the HDD.

i amke meauserement and this 21.8V - 18.5V was this which i used accidentali and correct have 14.2V it showed it when i measured it without connection and with connection to external hdd. i hope it is everything what you need.

Thank you for patience

You most likely killed your external hard drive enclosure and MAYBE the drive, too. If it's a 500GB 7200.11 it should definitely have the suppressor diode to save the drive. That means the drive is unuseable now, but could perhaps be recued pretty easily.

BUT, did you test the drive alone, without the external enclosure? If you did and the drive appears to be dead, then I'll tell you where to look for the diode(s). If one of the diodes burnt through, then you probably have a short circuit on the S-ATA power connector. So check that first.

Have a look at this:

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

And check if there are any short circuits on the power connector where there shouldn't be any. Remember, I had one between 12V and GND. So the multimeter in "continuity test" beeped when connecting one probe to the 12V power planes and the other to a GND plane.

Regarding my own drives:

BTW, I came to the conclusion that my last 500GB drive seems to have an electrical defect. It began to sound strange and the PCB get pretty hot in some spots where the good drives stay much cooler.

The 1TB drive seems to have another form of defect which I'm not quite sure about yet. I can change some things through commands on the terminal, but as soon as I remove power, it reverts completely back to where it used to be. Not being detected by BIOS and without much information. That means for example I can restore the default drive settings by using the command "F,,22", but after removing power, it'll be back to the old settings. And everytime I try the command "m0,2,2,,,,,22", the drive stops spinning (I heard and felt that it did) and the terminal just hangs.

Very strange, indeed.

Edited August 5, 2009 by MadOCer

[poopythej]

I've just registered on this forum after poking around a while and I was attempting the BSY fix on my drive 7200.11 750GB drive from dell. So in short Hi! and thanks for a great guide! After fighting the LED: errors for a while I successfully went through all commands, however the partition regeneration "m02,0,0,0,0,22" step has failed to produce any output in hyperterminal for over 12 hours. I am loath to turn off the drive until I know if there is anything I can do to rescue the drive. I don't believe I missed anything, and all other commands operated as expected. If anyone has any advise I'd appreciate it!

[MadOCer]

I've just registered on this forum after poking around a while and I was attempting the BSY fix on my drive 7200.11 750GB drive from dell. So in short Hi! and thanks for a great guide! After fighting the LED: errors for a while I successfully went through all commands, however the partition regeneration "m02,0,0,0,0,22" step has failed to produce any output in hyperterminal for over 12 hours. I am loath to turn off the drive until I know if there is anything I can do to rescue the drive. I don't believe I missed anything, and all other commands operated as expected. If anyone has any advise I'd appreciate it!

You should have turned the drive off long ago. When it doesn't respond in anything less than 5-10 minutes, then it didn't do anything from the start anyways. So no reason to keep it powered on for hours.

Edited August 6, 2009 by MadOCer

[poopythej]

Ok, thanks for the quick response! So powering off shouldn't harm the drive any more than it already is I expect. What is the next course of action? Should I redo the terminal steps from the beginning outlined by Gradius or Aviko? If you know what is the most likely problem/solution?

[MadOCer]

Ok, thanks for the quick response! So powering off shouldn't harm the drive any more than it already is I expect. What is the next course of action? Should I redo the terminal steps from the beginning outlined by Gradius or Aviko? If you know what is the most likely problem/solution?

You can try again from the start, but there is no guarantee that it a) will work this time and B) there isn't anything else wrong with your drive. Good luck with your further tries. Hope you'll be more successful than me recently.

But for detailed instructions I'm clearly the wrong person and aviko and co. seem to have left the thread some time ago. No wonder. This thread started at the beginning of this year. But still there are lots of defective 7200.11.

Edited August 6, 2009 by MadOCer

[Libra21]

Hi

I have the 7200.11 drive which recently developed the BSY fault. Following the OPs instructions I got:

USB > RS232 cable

RS232 > 3.3V TTL Converter

Using Jumper Wires I connected the V and GND of the TTL converter to the 5V and GND of a Molex cable (using a molex > fan connector to make the connection) and then from TXD and RXD to RX and TX on the HDD

The Converter is recieving power since the red LED is brightly lit:

whole setup (low quality srry)

My problem is I can't get any output at all from Hyperterminal. My USB > Serial cable drivers were installed and under device manager came up as COM5, but when trying COM5 I get no output whatsoever (Ctrl-Z does nothing)

So I tried doing a loopback test, but not sure If I'm doing it right. I plugged a jumper wire from the TXD to RXD on the TTL board and then tried typing in Hyperterminal, but still nothing:

Am I doing something wrong or is there a problem with the Converter I bought or the USB>Serial cable???

Edited August 6, 2009 by Libra21

[MadOCer]

Hi

I have the 7200.11 drive which recently developed the BSY fault. Following the OPs instructions I got:

USB > RS232 cable

RS232 > 3.3V TTL Converter

Using Jumper Wires I connected the V and GND of the TTL converter to the 5V and GND of a Molex cable (using a molex > fan connector to make the connection) and then from TXD and RXD to RX and TX on the HDD

The Converter is recieving power since the red LED is brightly lit:

whole setup (low quality srry)

My problem is I can't get any output at all from Hyperterminal. My USB > Serial cable drivers were installed and under device manager came up as COM5, but when trying COM5 I get no output whatsoever (Ctrl-Z does nothing)

So I tried doing a loopback test, but not sure If I'm doing it right. I plugged a jumper wire from the TXD to RXD on the TTL board and then tried typing in Hyperterminal, but still nothing:

Am I doing something wrong or is there a problem with the Converter I bought or the USB>Serial cable???

All you need is the USB to serial port converter. You don't need the additional RS232 converter. Don't knwo how you came up with this. It's either, or, not both.

Try it with the USB cable alone. Should work as desired as long as you have the drivers configured right.

[Libra21]

Hm but I can't even get as far as a loopback test on this cable

I tried connecting pins 2 and 3 on the serial cable like in this pic: (in red)

but still get no response

EDIT: Doh! turns out that image is mislabeled, and the top row of pins is the other way around

I moved the jumpers across and now i'm getting loopback

EDIT2: so how would I connect direct from serial to the HDD? when I link the RXD / TXD to TX / RX lines all HT gives me is gibberish (even when I swap them over) and when I connect the GND to GND i get nothing at all

Edited August 7, 2009 by Libra21

[jaclaz]

All you need is the USB to serial port converter. You don't need the additional RS232 converter. Don't knwo how you came up with this. It's either, or, not both.

Try it with the USB cable alone. Should work as desired as long as you have the drivers configured right.

Well. NO.

You need TTL level signals.

Serial output is NOT normally at TTL levels:

http://www.arcelect.com/rs232.htm

DO NOT connect directly a RS232 to HD.

the "thing" connected to the HD needs to be TTL:

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

TTL uses much lower voltage!

jaclaz

[MadOCer]

All you need is the USB to serial port converter. You don't need the additional RS232 converter. Don't knwo how you came up with this. It's either, or, not both.

Try it with the USB cable alone. Should work as desired as long as you have the drivers configured right.

Well. NO.

You need TTL level signals.

Serial output is NOT normally at TTL levels:

http://www.arcelect.com/rs232.htm

DO NOT connect directly a RS232 to HD.

the "thing" connected to the HD needs to be TTL:

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

TTL uses much lower voltage!

jaclaz

And why shoud that be dangerous? Or let me rephrase: Why does it work for so many people without the extra TTL converter? USB uses 5V and for example the FT2232 needs a LDO regulator to bring that down to 3.3V anyway. Maybe there are other converter chips that use 5V directly, but I doubt that.

So, please explain in detail why it should be dangerous? If I'm wrong, I'll be happy to learn something new.

[Libra21]

As far as I can tell my TTL adapter dosen't work anyway, I tried it in a normal serial port and it can't even do a loopback test

[jaclaz]

So, please explain in detail why it should be dangerous? If I'm wrong, I'll be happy to learn something new.

Let me re-phrase:

Serial output is NOT normally at TTL levels:

http://www.arcelect.com/rs232.htm

DO NOT connect directly a RS232 to HD, unless you are positive that the maximum voltage in output is within TTL level ranges.

And explain:

for all we know the USB to RS232 converter may output a higher voltage than the TTL specs, see here:

http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/RS-232-usb.html

Hardware specific problems

RS232 ports which are physically mounted in a computer are often powered by three power sources: +5 Volt for the UART logic, and -12 Volt and +12 Volt for the output drivers. USB however only provides a +5 Volt power source. Some USB to RS232 converters use integrated DC/DC converters to create the appropriate voltage levels for the RS232 signals, but in very cheap implementations, the +5 Volt voltage is directly used to drive the output. This may sound strange, but many RS232 ports recognize a voltage above 2 Volt as a space signal, where a voltage of 0 Volt or less is recognized as a mark signal. This is not according to the original standard, because in the original RS232 standard, all voltages between -3 Volt and +3 Volt result in an undefined signal state. The well known maxim MAX232 series of RS232 driver chips have this non-standard behaviour for example. Although the outputs of these drivers swings between -10 Volt and +10 Volt, the inputs recognize all signals swinging below 0 Volt and above 2 Volt as valid signals.

jaclaz

[Andry]

Hello, I followed instructions to fix the BSY error in Seagate drives (I assumed that it works for Maxtor drives too). I get exactly the BSY error explained (LED: 000000CC FAddr: 0024A051). My problem is that when I remove the board and connect to Hyper Terminal, I get the prompt with the INPUT COMMAND ERROR in an infinite loop, as if I'd send continuosly wrong commands. So, I can't input any command... Any ideas? Thank you very much!