Seagate 7200.10 HDDs, How-to fix BSY state too!

[scanman1]

I may be new on this forum, but if any of you follow the NA Satellite scene, you know of me.

I needed to register here, to expain to others how I recovered a 1 TB Seagate 7200.10, NOT a 7200.11 drive from the dreaded BSY state.

Let me start by saying that I had the same issue with a 7200.11, and thanks to all the good folks over here, I got that going.

Then the little light bulb lit up in my head...See I have a 7800.10 1 TB drive that I had stupidly placed in a cheap external "made in china" USB enclosure, all plastic, totally entombed. I ran it non-stop, recording the Summer Olympics in HD LIVE from the Canadian commercial free HD live feed for enough events (MPEG-3) to fill the puppy to the rim. Being the middle of the night, and live, I never got to watch them!

Wel, sure as clockwork, The drive went into BSY state when I went to start watching them. Opened the case, and I could fry an egg on the drive, it was painfully hot, and this is certainly what brought this disk down

After reading all the posts and recovering a 7200.11, I dragged this brick out of the closet, with "nothing to loose".

I ripped a MAX-232 hand soldered circuit that I used on a Directv series 2 Tivo, and just removed the extra circuitry for that old use....Never throw out anything!

Hooked up the drive EXACTLY as the 7800.11, but on power up, it was obvious with the garbage on the terminal window, I had the wrong baud rate.

First GUESS, I was right!

Baud Rate:9600

Control:8,N,1 No flow.

I downloaded the terminal manual from hddguru and hit cntrl-z, and the prompt was slightly different, I proceeded to play.

BTW, I did not get cntrl-Z to work until I slid a piece of plastic between the PCB and the heads as shown on the other posts. did the same spin down command, removed the plastic, and did a spin up.

BTW, I NEVER even bothered with loosening the T-6 screws!

If you have any thin plastic container that was a peg hook type item, with the super thin plastic, in my case some headphones, it's thin enough to slide in there without even loosening a screw!

I then tried the normal guide for the 7200.11, but it did not like the commands, and gave me an invalid control word error.

I'm assuming that the "22" control word is only for the 7200.11, but it DID take the command:

G-List Erase (cert the reserved cyl):

T>i4,1,22 (enter)

Notice there is no F3 prefixing the command prompt......

I was half drunk and it took the command but I did not test the drive as it did not give me any confirmation, so I went ahead and placed a second command that it did not error on:

(Drive Configuration restored to defaults)

T>F,,11

No response to either command, just an immediate new prompt. I figured I didn't fix anything, but probably bade the break turn to lead.

I removed the serial wires and hooked up the sata cable, and I was so SHOCKED when the bios posted the drive, I dropped my drink and broke the glass on the floor!

It's working!!!

Went from a BSY state, with pc not able to detect drive, back to A-OK.

Not sure what command did it, but I played and got EXTREMELY lucky.

Hopefully, an expert will now explain what I did right, before others blindly attempt what I did.

I had nothing to loose, and was VERY LUCKY in my guessing, but I can now see the asshats from data recovery houses getting worried that more information is getting out there...

Edited May 7, 2009 by scanman1

[granblanco]

Hi, do you remember exactly what you did? I have a 500 gb seagate disk in a busy state, I tried the 7200.11 unlock guide but I didnt get the same results

[AquaFire]

Hi, do you remember exactly what you did? I have a 500 gb seagate disk in a busy state, I tried the 7200.11 unlock guide but I didnt get the same results

Hi I also have a 500Gb Seagate (out of a FreeAgent Enclosure) which is behaving like a very bad child. So did you have any luck in recovering your data or making it usable with the same procedure for 7200.11 recovery.

Thanks.

[BlouBul]

I think the drive just needed to cool down , but you are welcome to try...

There are also some more info here: http://stx.lithium.c...0-10/td-p/53921

I still do not think you got the BSY problem from what you described in your previous post.

Edited October 1, 2010 by BlouBul

[giotto75]

Hi all, i've tried to do the same with my 7200.10 that has the same problem, i don't get wit ctrl z the connection, but at the moment i connect with hyperterminal i receive mcuh of number and letters in sequence of this type:

FSA 610 420000

FSA 610 420000

FSA 610 420000

FSA 610 420000

FSA 610 420000

Infinite times...

I've connected with the same way of 7200.11 with nokia c42 cable and tx-->rx , rx--->tx, and used bitrate 9600 as descripted in first post. If someone has experienced to get up the disk please post it here the way.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[BlouBul]

Hi all, i've tried to do the same with my 7200.10 that has the same problem, i don't get wit ctrl z the connection, but at the moment i connect with hyperterminal i receive mcuh of number and letters in sequence of this type:

H giotto75

There was just one very unconfirmed report of a 7200.10 drive which *might* have suffered from BSY (or might just have been too hot), being fixed. Even the OP admitted that there was some alcohol involved...

No-one since managed to do that here. There is some info from other sources in the post above yours. If you manage to fix it, please give us feedback on exactly how you did it, since no-one here knows.

Edited October 24, 2010 by BlouBul

[giotto75]

Hi all, i've tried to do the same with my 7200.10 that has the same problem, i don't get wit ctrl z the connection, but at the moment i connect with hyperterminal i receive mcuh of number and letters in sequence of this type:

H giotto75

There was just one very unconfirmed report of a 7200.10 drive which *might* have suffered from BSY (or might just have been too hot), being fixed. Even the OP admitted that there was some alcohol involved...

No-one since managed to do that here. There is some info from other sources in the post above yours. If you manage to fix it, please give us feedback on exactly how you did it, since no-one here knows.

I've seen other info and i'm testing it. If i get some result i let you know.

Edited October 24, 2010 by giotto75

[BlouBul]

I've seen other info and i'm testing it. If i get some result i let you know.

Thanks, that will be appreciated.

[jaclaz]

Just found these:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100416080308/http://www.datarecoverystory.com/2009/07/typical-data-recovery-case-for-7200-9-and-7200-10/

http://web.archive.org/web/20100325045852/http://www.datarecoverystory.com/2009/06/data-recovery-from-read-only-hdd/

that seem like confiirming what the OP posted.

jaclaz

Edited February 7, 2012 by jaclaz