Hi,

Does anyone know what causes "Bad AppCodeKey" error message at power-up? Drive goes straight to T> level. I need access to data.

I can start app code after downloading and have full SA read/write access. Overwrote 1st copy of app code with good close match drive but I get exact same error.

Then overwrote with app code from a different capacity drive and get "ERR App Code" so it seems my 1st good drive is definitely a good match.

Any ideas about how to fix? Does anyone know what is the "key" referring to?

Thanks!

addaptive again

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Спасибо
СУТИОНО / АПИНГ

Any idea which adaptives ?

Boot?
Servo?
Drive?

Thanks.

Overlays incompatible with App code or have read errors
But App code itself matches with ROM revision

Bad adaptives can prevent drive from accessing Overlays

Give us more details

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I find no read errors in SA. All copies are the same as each other including boot, servo and drive adaptives. Drive failed in this state, no-one else has "played" with drive, this I know for sure.

What specific details would be useful to know? Thanks.

It can happen if you changed PCB and used App code from donor

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The original PCB is still on the drive. Also I checked the ROM contents between the good drive and the bad drive, they are identical (same MD5-128), so I know there is no unique drive information in ROM anyway.

Before working with this drive I backed up all important SA parts. I did the same to the good drive. I can find no significant differences between the two drives (i.e. no obvious corruption or missing data).

When started, even before I doing anything to the drive, it gives the "Bad AppCodeKey" error. So something has gone bad through normal failure.

Then it's magic
You need magic wand to fix the drive

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Just curious - was the drive shocked? Can also be platter geometry. Had some case where cannot access data and had strange behaviour like this because of target speed and on other case 'geometry'. Had to use a known good chassis.

Doomer - Thanks for the "helpful" comment, but you could have just said that you don't know, that would have been sufficient.. BTW I have worked in HDD recovery for more than 12 years and I still never found a magic wand, just a magic finger...

BlackST - There is a chance that the drive was shocked. I had ruled bad motor out since full read/write access to SA is possible with no errors. But your experience with these drives is very likely better than mine, so I will try new chassis. Thank you for your advice. PS: Do you know a guy called Ronald Willemse?

Don't rule out the motor problems without accurate diag... Motors - especially on 2,5" - are nasty.

I know for sure
And I told you why exactly this message appears - overlays version doesn't match with application code (wrong overlays version or wrong overlays checksum or overlays cannot be read for some reason)
But it looks like you don't know even basics of Seagates SA to fix this problem you just keep telling that nothing has been changed and everything is original. If that so only magic can help you because only magically overlays revision don't match app code if NOTHING has been changed
I'm not a babysitter and I'm not feeding you from spoon


what a shame

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Doomer - Yes I do have good experience with Seagate drives but this is first time I see this exact message. Although I have 12+ yrs experience, are we not all always learning? Or maybe you don't ever need to learn any more perhaps?

Anyway, I do appreciate your comments, thank you for your help. When I said "nothing has been changed" I meant that nothing was done by human user, e.g. by repair tools. You said that changing PCB and using donor App Code might cause this problem, so I take it this means that adaptives in SA are sometimes changed by that action. Thanks.

Please provide:
App revision
Flash Revision
Engineering revision
CERT code revision
Unique number
and overlays revision

After that will make 2+2

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

@Doomer:- I got drive working, it was corruption in ATA overlay, overlay structure "looked" ok and no read errors but after much closer examination i found some parts were bad. Replaced with overlay from donor.

So i must say thank you for your suggestion "overlays cannot be read for some reason" because this was correct

Just curious : it seemed that there were read errors on the SA so that's why I thought about physical problem like shift or vibration... if you have SA read errors, is one thing. When SA is readable but have LOGICAL problems like incompatibility and so on, it can misled. The problem is to have the drive at hand.... in any case happy to hear the case was solved and without opening the disk in clean room !

@BlackST - thanks for your comments. In fact there were no read errors in the SA on this particular drive but I understand what you are saying, I have seen strange problems caused by platter shift and bad motor too. I had never seen this failure message before tho. I too am pleased that there was no need to open the drive in cleanroom! I appreciate your responses, very helpful.