Dear Friends,

I would like to share my experience on Seagate F3 DM drive which was received with the symptom of completely dead (no signs of working, terminal outputs on PC3000 and DFL). Client informed us that the drive stopped working in a sudden - no drops, shakes, electricity short circuits.

Client willing to pay all necessary costs associated with the repair of the hard drive to recover important business data. So we ordered a new exact same hard drive with the same P/N, Model, FW, Site, PCB number. The hard drive arrived and we removed the PCB to check if the flash ROM chip is same or not. Flash ROMs were different. So we swapped the ROM to new PCB and installed on patient drive. Powered on hard drive we heard strange head movement noise and stopped the hard drive. Decided to open hard drive in a clean-room environment to check the physical conditions of the heads, ramps and the platters.

We opened drive and saw that the heads and head ramp completely damaged and broken into parts. See the picture below.
We changed the heads including magnets and also plastic head ramp.

Now the hard drive gives output to DFL and PC3000 as below:

Boot 0x40M

Spin Up
FAIL Servo Op=0100 Resp=0003
ResponseFrame 05C0 0051 03B4 2D40 0008 0000 0000 0000 0FC7 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 09AA EB88 40A8 2CDC EAA3 BC0F 7850 E686 B707 735E 0000 007F 0000 0000 001F 0004 0010
FAIL Servo Op=0100 Resp=0003
ResponseFrame FE40 0054 03B4 2D80 0008 0000 0000 0000 0FB9 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 09AA EB88 40A8 2CDC EAA3 BC0F 7850 E686 B707 735E 0000 007F 0000 0000 001F 0004 0000

I can confirm that the head swap were done by experienced engineer in clean-room environment. Also we don't observe any damages on platters. I also tested the hard drive by soldering donor and patient drive ROMs on donor PCB to check if it work or not.

Could you please share you valuable comments? I know that these hard drives are headache.

Thank you.

Looks like the heads missed the ramp which is actually a good way for them to fail as long as they got stuck there and didn't pass back over the platters (I assume it wasn't loudly clicking???).

The drive should have a good chance of recovery, but it'll likely take 3 or 4 tries before you can find a set of donor heads that actually work. These DM's are a nightmare and often don't work even with a perfectly matched set.

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You may want to even try transplanting the magnet set over too. It rarely ever makes a difference, but I've seen a few times where it helped. Given how twitchy these are, it's worth a shot.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Thank you very much for your comments. I actually swapped the magnet set together with the donor head. The patient drive did not click louder after putting new PCB. I heard sound like platter continuously touching to headers. That's is why I stopped to open the drive to see what is happening inside.

Regarding the 4-5 times head swap? We both understand that this is a huge cost. Client will not pay that amount unless their a success. It is really difficult hard drives.

If I did a ROM swap to the PCB with the number and rev, should I do ROM adaptation as well for the heads installed from the donor drive - I used the same hard drive PBC for patient drive?

Thank you

Heads can't read servo labels. Drive will not start normally even if just one head can't see them. And there are six heads in total.

Most appropriate test now would be to install donor heads back into the donor drive, it will give you the necessary answers.

Generally, I'd say that according to our experience and considering what happened / what has been done, extraction will require no less than a month, as I believe that situation is likely to be serious. I definitely wouldn't rule out physical surface damage and if so, then this drive requires a different approach.

P.S.
We are rather close to you and will be happy to help with complex recoveries like this, if necessary. Please check your PM.

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• Remote RAID, NAS, SAN, VMware, DVR (CCTV), flash and tape recovery. Data recovery support.

Dear Dmitri, Appreciate your thoughts. That is actually good point to check if the heads damaged during and after swap process. I will re-install the heads back to donor drive to make sure the heads are OK. I will post the results. Thank you.

Well this drive has a bug. It's called ST*000DM001.
Most probably you've done everything right but still...

I agree with Dmitri, install heads back to donor and see if they work. If they don't, either the head swap went wrong, or there is media damage on the drive.
In my experience, if there is media damage with the drive and your client is not willing to pay even for the cost of 4-5 donors, then you're wasting your time.

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Thank you North wind. I appreciate your thought. It make sense - I will check the head swap back to donor and post the results here.

Is it possible to give more information about the bug on this drives?

Thank you and good luck in your recovery jobs.

Hi zeydullak, when I said there is bug with these drives I meant that these drives themselves are problematic.

Good luck with your recovery.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

DM001 "bug" = shit quality

IMHO

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Can only agree

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Digitalsupport Data Recovery
https://digitalsupport.dk

Thank you very much guys. DM series is a really big problem.

zeydullak: What were the results?

Have you been able to play with the ROM settings?

No joke. I've got one here that actually worked for 10 min after it's first headswap before beginning to click and spin down again. Really frustrating! Customer just paid for second donor, so we'll see how that one goes. The 3Tb model is the worst one IMHO.

I just tell my customers up front that these usually require 4-5 attempts before success, and that as long as they are willing to keep investing in parts I'll keep trying. And if my efforts eventually pay off, I make $800-$1200 for the labor. Though more often the customer backs out after the first or second set of heads crap out, and I just wasted my time.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

whatttt ?


without getting paid a dime ? you are nuts ! sorry for the language

Did you get any servo errors after swapping the heads? That's what I'm getting with my 3 TB...