I am using an Atola Insight - USB Disk Sense unit, w/version 2.5 software. When attempting to unlock Seagate 7200.1 drives, I get an error saying the Disk Sense unit can not communicate with the drive via the serial port. The serial cable is connected, the light flashes briefly while attempting to communicate. I metered the cable, even tried reversing the red and black, but no luck. Am I looking at a hardware or software problem?

open the terminal program - when drive spins up there should be some output from drive initializing there. If not check with another seagate to verify terminals up and baud rate / port is correct and retry target drive.

We have verified that at this time, no Seagate drives can be unlocked. Previously, we were able to unlock some models. The program will correctly spin up and identify the drive, but we get the same error. Error 7020 - unable to communicate via serial port. Is there a diagnostic for the Disk Sense unit to verify it is communicatting properly with the drive?

See comment above from warnerr - you will have to open the terminal in Atola Insight and power on the drive - you should see some output.

If you do not see any output, then you can try shorting the serial cable and typing some characters in the terminal - you should see what you type when the cable is shorted. Once you remove the short, the characters should stop coming back. This will prove that the cable and the unit are fine.

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Dmitry

wag: check serial port setting in terminal mode. likely no longer on correct port. use known good seagate or short pins and type. either way terminal should output date/ what is typed. (terminal accessed upper right corner of software- there are settings.)

Attaching a 7200.1 drive and powering up, the default Com port is COM4, the default speed is 9600. Shorting the serial cable at the hard drive connector will allow me to type in the Terminal window, but reconnecting to the drive results in the same error (7020). Checking Device Manager, COM4 shows "Silicon Labs CP210X USB to UART Bridge". COM1, the only other COM port available says simply "Communications Port".
Set to COM4 and 9600, the light on the serial port of the Disk Sense unit will blink 2x or 3x before the error comed up.
The Atola correctly identifies the drive and indicates "Locked, Maximum" when the drive ID is requested.

Is this by any chance an IDE drive? Can you post its model number?

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Dmitry

Seagate Model ST910021AS