500-GB Maxtor® DiamondMax® 22 SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Model STM3500320AS
S/N: 9QM6GPM3
P/N: 9GT154-325
FIRMWARE: MX15
Purchased: Sep 18, 2008

I always shut down XP correctly, I have a UPS too. So I recently started up my PC and windows can’t detect any bootable device. So I immediately check the hard drive.
When powering up, she spins up and sounds healthy. So I tried a different SATA connection – nothing. Then I tried an external hard drive enclosure – nothing. I also tried another PC - nothing.

What are my options? A friend of my suggest PCB replacement as the drive sounds fine and spins up. Only thing is that this drive is discontinued. Would this be a problem?

Seagate says that warranty will replace the hard drive but I need the data – not a replacement.

I live in Africa, so my options are limited. Local merchant here only has the following drives available: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS, Seagate Barracuda SV35.5 ST3500410SV.

Ill venture a guess. Ull need FW exact , model exact P/N exact date as close as possible. And a barracuda probably wont work for u. Since ur drive is a maxtor thats made by seagate =)) U will need another DiamondMax =(
Also pcb swap is not a magic pill that will help u...

Does BIOS recognise the drive during POST?

This does not sound like a PCB problem.
You need pro help.
Terminal output might be also helpful. (search on this forum)

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

Can I find this in the BIOS setup during boot?

ok, BIOS does not recognise the drive during post.

Where can I find this terminal to check it? (Sorry, I am new to this - although you can say I'm like a classic domestic violence case, because I Maxtor keeps on beating me - but I keep on coming back since this is the 3rd failed drive.)

Not likely to be PCB. This drive model is affected by similar issues as Seagate 7200.11 which have been exhaustively dissected in this forum. If startup sounds are normal then my guess is that it's suffering from one of the two common firmware issues affecting the latter: 1) LBA=0, and/or 2) not reaching ready state on startup. The solutions to both are buried in the forum discussions.

Thanks for that... I will start searching, but if anyone knows of it's exact location, please feel free to post.

stm3500320as-mx15-t11435.html

try pming the guy. He had same issue

After some reading about similar cases, I have decided that attempting a BSY fix would be the best route to go. As documented here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seag ... 28807.html

After some reading, I'm going to attempt a BSY fix as documented here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seag ... 28807.html