I have a Toshiba MK5065GSXF HDD2J62 TV02 500GB drive. The laptop it was in is older. The drive was made 18OCT2011. Basically it stopped being correctly identified in Linux. The data could not be read but the drive would report as 7GB instead of 500GB. Then it stopped loading in linux after I was in the middle of a DD clone attempt. I somehow managed to get 30GB after maximizing the perceived boundaries with TestDisk. It still wasn't seeing the whole 500GB, only about 50-60GB were seen. So after it completely stopped being seen in Linux the BIOS was seeing it. It noted the manufacturer correctly. I was sleep deprived so I didn't make note of the reported HDD size. But, the BIOS stopped even recognizing it. It's a blank spot now. The drive gets power and the motor runs. The heads are not stuck, there's no clicking. It's the first time I've had this type of failure. I've dealt with heads clicking before and made it through with no or minimal data loss.

This will be a complete bust if I can't fully diagnose the problem and it appears to be the HDD firmware so far. I have not found any way to back up the presumed corrupted firmware, and then write over it with proper firmware. I see there are people selling some likely expensive products to do this but after having seen some hacks on replacing Seagate HDD firmware I thought some one might be able to point me in the right direction. I will keep googling and reading through this site in the mean time.

I am an indigent whistleblower and this drive had a lot of things that I had no money to buy a back up drive for. A lot of legal work is on this drive.

I am in the process of trying to get MHDD working on a bootable CD. I have a few links that I'm going to try since the last few didn't work. I'll post the results of that if I get it working. If there is any other software or specifics that some one can mention regarding toshiba firmware copying and flashing please chime in.

Regards

These threads may be of interest to you:

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=1254
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=751

BTW, I would use ddrescue or HDDSuperClone to clone your drive. These tools understand how to work with bad sectors.

http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm going through those threads now. This is the sort of help I was hoping for. I don't mind googling for info but sometimes it doesn't yield useful results because the searcher simply doesn't know that certain keywords would result in useful hits, or google simply returns garbage.

The drive isn't being picked up at all so I think ddrescue is out. But this HDDSuperclone looks extremely useful. The os and bios bypass is precisely what I need. I have a plateful now to go through those links you gave me and to learn. I've already bookmarked the one thread as it has the toshiba low level commands I was hoping to find. I'll have to wget the info too so I'll always have it.

Many many thanks to you. If I make it to the point of recovering some of what I hope to recover I'll be sure to give links so you all can see the whistleblowing work I've done and am doing and it may come in handy for any of you if you find yourselves dealing with the court system, which is a fully operation RICO enterprise at this point in time.

Off to read...
Regards

2am time to call it quits for the day. MHDD was successfully burned onto CD and the software loaded. It did not detect the Toshiba drive with the PCB connected to it, nor with it hanging alone w/o the drive. I can confirm that the drive is running. I can physically feel it vibrating like it's seeking position in a non stop loop.


In regards to HDDSuperclone, there is a warning that it can not disable some of the built in ubuntu attempts to fix a drive. I don't think it's worth a gamble until I know better what I'm dealing with. I did see in the one thread that you linked that Spildit posted the following regarding my type of drive:



And



I will look into these other tools mentioned. I may join that forum to try to see what Spildit might be able to communicate regarding my issues.

I did catch this part of comments made elsewhere either by you or someone else, so I'm grateful that you're reinforcing this structural difference that you researchers have figured out, no thanks to Toshiba. At the risk of sounding like someone who has never programmed at a low level (ASM) or done much to familiarize myself with drives could you state what CPs are? I understand they contain/are modules that are used in rebuilding ROMs/firmware.



This I've experienced before with a few desktop drives. The current drive is from a laptop and it doesn't seem like a clicking.The arm moves like it's seeking a position, it stops, repeats. It doesn't make the sound like it's smacking into the boundaries in which it moves.



Yes. For the first second and by the 2nd second it's starting the repetitive sound as if it's seeking.



The option is a consideration but I'd rather sit on this and try to manage it myself. Judges and BAR members are not happy with my pro per whistle blowing work. They aren't used to former research scientists studying law and then pointing out all the due process violations they commit as a matter of SOP. Not only do I have to worry about trying to save data, but I have to worry about being able to trust who I might send it to if I decide I can't go without it.



I am checking into whether some new TTL adaptors that I bought which use the https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/DS_PL2303TA_d20120504.pdf PL2303TA chip will work without the 1.8V low voltage issue. I ordered them before I came across postings on the issue. I normally use Linux. I have winxp 64 bit on the desktop w/debian. I presume the hyperterminal is like Putty and I select a port for the drive in order to issues commands. It would be awesome if it's a bad PCB but from what I've read it really sounds like the firmware/ROM is damaged. I've done some soldering. Almost completed the wavebubble project ladyada put out. Fun bit of work but I don't like doing ICs with the super tiny traces. If it turns out all I need to do is replace the PCB I'll be grateful.


I'm not sure what the g-list is either other than some structure that sometimes gets corrupted. I'm sure I missed a guide to some of these things. MHDD doesn't appear to pick up the drive. Working drives show up in the list to select from, but when I only hook up the non-working toshiba it doesn't show any thing. I was thinking ROM/firmware corruption could damage the drive name/info so that MHDD doesn't even pick it up but I'm speculating.



I booted into MHDD, connected the Toshiba to the primary SATA port, hit shift+f3 to select drive/port, selected primary port 1. It throws errors and flags. I took pictures of this process. I need to DL from camera to lower the size then I'll post with text.



To me the loss of capacity seems to be a part of the firmware/ROM corruption or reading errors; however, if it were reading errors why would it be consistently 7GB over a few reboots. I can't fathom any other explanation for it. Before the drive stopped getting picked up TestDrive clearly reported only 7GB initially before I told it to maximize boundaries, which still only put the 500GB drive at ~50GB total capacity. If the size of the partition is always a function of what's written on disk then corrupted data should account for the problem. I don't mind troubleshooting. I just needed to get to some locations (this site and some others are great but took a while to find) where I can hunker down and study the issue. I need to know what's going on and if it's within my control fix it, if not, I need to think hard about that other step. Legal activism at a true grassroots level requires very careful maneuvering. Stuff I'd rather not be involved in. I'd rather be replicating more of Tesla's patents and work and creating simple howto's for others to properly build and use his circuits the way they are supposed to be used, not as light shows. So, with all of that said, I think a number of you demonstrate a proficiency with low level work and reverse engineering (ie: TOSHIBA ROMs) that I would consider someone here rather than a large company to fix this if I get to a point where I decide to send it off.

Pictures to be UL'd soon.

The TOSHIBA was hooked up after the standalone MHDD program was loaded. It was connected to primary SATA. These are the results after hitting shift+f3 and selecting the primary.


Here's more images of it in MHDD


[/img]https://s13.postimg.org/7kem7xft3/0202180113.jpg-shrunk.jpg[/img]

The ATA Identify Device command is returning a 512-byte block filled with 0x7F6C.

total LBAs = 9181853844272611180 = 0x7F6C7F6C7F6C8000 (rounded up)

You can see this by executing the following commands in a Windows DOS box.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

How do we know the OP is correctly using MHDD? No mention of making sure the BIOS was in IDE mode. Can you detect a good drive plugged into the same port with MHDD? The result is an indication of no device plugged in at all.

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http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone

That is just a simple disclaimer that the software is not responsible for anything the OS does when the OS detects the drive. Linux usually works much better with failing or bad drives then Windows does, and should not normally alter the drive. If I were to make that same disclaimer for Windows, it would be more like "DON'T PLUG THE DRIVE INTO A COMPUTER THAT IS RUNNING WINDOWS!"

_________________
http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need to wait for a few minutes before a Toshiba drive will communicate on the terminal port? If so, could this also apply to ATA? That is, would you also need to wait for several minutes for a busy drive to come ready via ATA?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

The MHDD result is that the status and error registers are both 0x7F, which is the standard result when no device is connected. If the drive is spinning up when connected, it would be detected and give some other result. Don't assume the MHDD results are correct. The OP may need some more direction on how to properly use MHDD.

_________________
http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone

I have a lot to take in from all of the responses and I humbly acknowledge that MHDD is not a tool that I have used frequently. Therefore, after reviewing and thinking through all of the responses, I will spend extra time with MHDD to see if I can yield any other results as a result of perhaps not utilizing it properly. I'm working to keep my head above water right now but I will post further tests soon. I'm grateful for all of the responses regarding my issue.

Just so you know, I myself struggle with how to use MHDD, which is why I am not offering to help in that respect, and am expecting the others to offer their help. If you every get to a point where you need help with the likes of HDDSuperTool or HDDSuperClone, then I can be of much more help.

_________________
http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone

Okay, so after a long day of tangential BS, I had time to mess with MHDD. It turns out that even though I used the primary input and had tried enabling it by modifying it’s cfg file, it still wasn’t actually working. I tried throwing the commandline option to enable the primary, and it was the same thing. The BIOS was set in Legacy mode. So, I just decided to switch over to the 2nd SATA. It worked right away on a normal drive, with normal results and info about the drive.







Again, the above images are from a normal, functioning drive.


The TOSHIBA drive caused the system to hang.




I tried the TOSHIBA pcb by itself. It did not show up in the options like the normal drive did and it also didn’t hang the system (that is freeze MHDD).




It allowed me to continue selecting various menus in MHDD, but the selection menu was always empty.


I think this gives me something good to go on. The laptop that was in has had to have the power jack replaced in 2016 something. I think between the connect/ disconnect surges something was damaged by electricity. There’s zero burn smell and nothing looks fried. It could have been death by a thousand cuts. So I need to take these results and review what’s been written about them so far. I don’t remember anything from sleep deprivation and insomnia. If I see a move for using the TTL cable I’ll give it a go.

I'm working to get to a point where I can try issuing a terminal stop to the drive since it seems to be in infinite seek mode. The recent mhdd results, coupled with some of the feed back from others, does seem to indicate some sort of firmware issue imho. I don't think HDDSuperclone will be an option until I can get control over what the drive is doing. Terminal test, attempt at ROM retrieval, ROM CP breakdown, CRC checks ( I assume I need a healthy ROM to use as a control?). I just need to get to a certain point then things will be in place to give HDDSuperClone a shot. It sounds promising. Again, I appreciate all of the feedback from all of you. You helped me catch the fact that the MHDD primary disable wasn't being disabled by a modified config or commandline option. Maybe it's a hardware compatibility issue, a number of drivers fail on boot with the boot disk I'm using. Most seemed unnecessary.

Spiltit has given me a long list of things to be examining so that's next along with what ever I come across on the way.... Slow and steady...

Now that you have MHDD figured out, it shows the drive is staying in the busy state. Time to work with the terminal, for which I am no help at all, so that will be all @spildit.

HDDSuperClone won't help you at all until you get the drive responding normally. If you would not have been able to get MHDD to work, I was going to offer help on how to use HDDSuperTool to get the status registers, but you figured out MHDD.

_________________
http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone

That's what I did with the last 2 pictures. MHDD doesn't freeze the system when I do that. But it doesn't see the PCB at all. With the PCB+drive connected it will cause MHDD to lock up as soon as I hit shift+f3 to select a system. It starts to display the options and gets to the second controller where it's hooked up and it hangs.

I think from many other posts what needs to happen is that I test my TTL connection and try to get terminal to stop the BSY state. Once that happens I'll just have to see if it will take and use commands. I've found some threads that look like they're on this exact topic from a few days back. Gonna keep reading and digging for a bit. I keep realizing various things I had on there like my cross-examination questions I had just updated. Ugh. What's life without a challenge? I'll report back in with progress. Also need to snag some other software to get a feel for things better. Victoria looks good.

EDIT: You just responded. I'm moving that direction now. Don't think I'll get any bench work in tonight because my back and hamstrings hurt so bad from chronic issues that only got 5:30hrs sleep and was up til like 10am. I will be reading as many threads as I can on this stuff while I rest in bed. The journey continues....

I'd feel more comfortable with MHDD if I didn't think it may not be running entirely normal. It didn't respond to turning on the primary controller via 2 separate methods. It's on a ramdisk and I confirmed that the edited .cfg file had the # removed.

Gonna read up on terminal use and some other progs with Toshiba. Sediv, Victoria, think there's another....

Hyperterminal isn't able to get through. I already tested the voltage on each of the 4 TTL ends. They match what the vendor provided. The loopback test in hyperterminal worked so I know transmission and reception is working. I haven't seen what people do in this scenario.

I have a full working TOSHIBA replacement drive that matches mine (model, firmware ver., date of manufac.) so I expect no differences between aside from whatever may be on the ROM for serials. I don't know what good it will do at this point.

I'm definitely disappointed that the hyperterminal attempt didn't work. I had the right com port and all.

I don't know if I properly hit publish on my last message as I don't see it posted. Hyperterminal didn't work with the drive. I did a loopback test and know the TTL cable was working. I'm waiting on an ordered TOSHIBA drive that has matching model, firmware, and manufacture date. Gonna have to see what my options are with that.