I have got the same issue over here and I have seen bunch of times.

The spinup and spinup time are normal, which mean that the motor driver drives the motor fine, but heads are clicking (failed read attempts) and the "spin up timer" finishes its count after the heads reads attempts cycles: this results in such long time:
that time amount is the spinup time + the heads reads attempts' time amount.

Now, one kind question: this error R/W Status 2 R/W Error 84150180, what is more like to be related to? Heads? Preamplifier? Some components on the board?

Thank you for any kind opinion/info
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Cor

Hi All,
Yes, another issue with the ST3500320AS. I have been reading hundreads (!) of forums for a few weeks and gathered useful information. However, my problem is still there, my drive is stuck.
At first, I did a 0LBA fix and BSY fix. Everything went fine in the procedure but my drive was still not visible in BIOS/Windows. I did all the procedure again and then, it worked! Next I udpated the FW to SD1A (yes, I took the last one from Seagate, I saw many post on that...) shutted down my computer to install the new disk where I would do the backup to but the defective drive never worked again...

From this time, I try and try again to do the 0LBA fix but it keeps saying
DiagError 00006008
Spin Error
Elapsed Time 20.098 secs
R/W Status 2 R/W Error 84150180
after the spin up command (U). I can spin it up and down as many time I want but as soon as I type another command (like N1, i4,1,22 or anything else) I get
LED:000000CC FAddr:00243FCF
Contacts are clean and screws are tight...

While spinning up or down the HD sound is "normal" but as soon as it reaches it's top speed, it does 11 clicks in a very repetitive and periodic manner, like if the heads were trying to read something again and again. Then it fails and the disk stops spinning.

In my opinion, the problem is one of these :
1- Bad head
2- Bad controller board
3- Something went wrong while flashing the SD1A firmware.

Is there any test I could do to better diagnoze the problem? Is there anything I could do to solve these problems, at least temporary? I am an electrical engineer and have access to all kind of tool and I am quite good at handworking...

Thanks everyone!

I think you chose to flash wrong firmware for your hdd .

Is this the firmware you used?
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... ocId=20795

Did you apply the Windows version or the CD ISO?

What was the original firmware version?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi fzabkar, rameez,

Thanks for your reply!
I think you're right about the FW issue.
Original FW was SD15. I applied SD1A from here :
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... NewLang=en
I am 90% sure... but I didn't bookmarked the link at this time...

I used the ISO CD.
Is there any way to re-flash the FW even if the drive is in this state? The Seagate flash utility fails... I guess that the drive needs at least the bootloader part of the FW to initiate a FW update but there should be a way to bypass it! After all, there was no FW at all upon the initial flash!

At this time the HD is detected in the BIOS (but it takes several minutes at the POST...) and seen in the Device Manager of Windows but I cannot access it. In the storage manager, Windows says it is not initialized... I think that the controller board identifies itself but access to the disk is still not possible.

What do you think?
Thanks for your help!

@slessard

Sorry, my URL was broken. It should have been ...
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... cId=207951

Anyway, it appears that you used the correct firmware update. I suspect that your drive has a different fault.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I think maybe one of the heads said good bye.

_________________
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SandForce SSD Recovery
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Oh... that would be sad...

In that case, is there any way to replace it or move the platters to another drive "safely"?
It looks like a good challenge!

You mean head that loads the FW?
I read on a forum that the FW can be stored at two different location, on platters used by different head.
Is there any way to use the other head to flash/access the drive?

Don't dream...

All discs, except 1-head models, store the firmware on different platter surfaces (typically head 0 and head 1), and also on up to 5 sectors. If copy #1 is not useable, disc starts with a little delay from FW copy #2. But if there is a failure in #1, or #1 is damaged, and the faulty values were stored also in #2, then...

Maybe a firmware developer can give us more information.

So the firmware has good chances to be "readable" by any of the heads but may be wrong or badly flashed?

Either the firmware is ok, or not.

What do you mean with "flashed"? Ok, for Seagates 7200.11 drives some firmware updates are available. But the firmware is not stored in a FLASH-ROM, it is written in firmware sectors (before "sector 0"). Redundant.
So if one copy is damaged, the other on has the same problem. There is also no "factory default" available (except IBM / Hitachi).

Regarding chances: As BlackST wrote...

As I see it, the drive has failing heads, which was the cause of the original symptoms. Because the drive was not backed up before the firmware update was applied there is a very good change that the data my no longer be recoverable...and if it is, it will likely be quite expensive now.

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Recovery Force Data Recovery

Am I right in saying that it is the head's read element that is most probably affected rather than the write element? If so, then am I right in thinking that writing the firmware is not as unsafe as it would appear? AIUI, even when the head is weak, it may still be able to accurately follow the embedded servo data on the track.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

The drive has a WUS lock if it cannot track properly.

_________________
All went well until I plugged the drive in.

WUS, RUS then TUS, then FUBAR ...

I am not sure to understand what

means...

I read on some forums that some people had success with downgrading the FW so I tried with SA14... Unexpectedly, the firmware downgrade worked... the drive is still having a couple of cyclic "click" at spin-up and then spin-down automatically but the sound is different. I guess it use a different algorithm to try to load the FW...
In the console, I tried the LB0 fix and got this :

F3 T>/2
F3 2>U (the spindle was stopped so I stated it before...)
Error 1009 DETSEC 00006008
Spin Error
Elapsed Time 19.984 secs
R/W Status 2 R/W Error 84150180
F3 2>
F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22

Error 1008 DETSEC 0000500E Process Defect List Error
R/W Sense 00000002, R/W Error 841C0087, List Offset 00000000, File Error 0000000
1

The errors messages are different from the ones with the SD1A FW. Not a big deal... Does it gives some clues that I can update the FW? Does the FW do a verification after updating? If yes, this could mean that the heads are good?

If the drive has failing heads, then no firmware update will fix it.

WUS = write unsafe

If the drive's servo is unable to lock onto the track, then writing will be disabled.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Ok I see!
Having nothing to loose, I updated the FW to SD1A again, and it worked successfully (the update).
Now I plug in the hard drive and it spin up normally and there is no more the 11 clicks before spin down and the POST and OS loads quickly! Also, the BIOS recognize it as a 500Gb drive (0Mb before...). However, Windows/Linux still can't access to the extended partitions, they are seen as "Unused space". Windows asks me if I want to initialize it. I am not sure what "initialize" means...
Is it the time to try a Data Recovery tool? Which would you suggest?

Thanks!