ST3250823AS won't show up

[dime]

Greetings all. I'd like to start out by saying that I first read through the MHDD documentation, faq, then spent a bit of time reading the forums to see what to expect when posting. I'm really pleasantly surprised by the number of professionals who browse this forum and judging from a complete outsider's perspective, you all seem very, very knowledgeable in the subject.

I had my ST3250823AS crash on me while I was in the process of moving it to a new raid1 for redundancy, oh the irony. At first, I did not recognize it may be a more serious problem because it crashed while I was in the process of moving files from a failing drive, MAXTOR6Y160P0, onto it. I thought windows crashed while copying files, MFT might be a bit off. I could recover the data. I disconnected the ST3250823AS and reinstalled linux and windows onto 2 other drives in the meantime. The first program I used was G**D***B*** (I won't give the link here in case there are rules about spamming commercial software, but I can provide it if anyone asks?) on the MAXTOR6Y160P0 and was able to retrieve all of the information from it. However, when it came to plugging in ST3250823AS as a slave, I tried to boot into either windows or linux and neither would boot despite the boot order being set to each drive respectively on multiple (dozens) of attempts. I tried booting into windows/linux first and then plugging ST3250823AS in and neither os seemed to see it. I tried plugging it into an external USB->SATA cable and it would detect the drive in linux like this:

[ 1547.268425] usb 5-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 1547.402245] usb 5-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1547.416719] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 1547.424187] usb-storage: device found at 4
[ 1547.424191] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 1552.416131] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 1552.416862] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
[ 1552.421529] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1552.421564] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
root@lanfear:~# fdisk /dev/sdf
Unable to read /dev/sdf

There was only one time when I got linux to actually boot while the drive was present (as a slave) in the system. It was really slow and it showed a lot of ata read errors on the console. I never got it to boot again. It just hangs.

So I burned MHDD and after reading enough to kind of feel comfortable about at least going in to see if it can see the drive, I tried it out. It would go as far as the part that says loading ms-dos, then it would hang. So again, I unplugged the sata cable and MHDD would boot all the way. I then plugged in a good test drive, SAMSUNGSP0812C, and sure enough, it showed the drive on #6, the first PCI device one. I then unplugged it, plugged in the ST3250823AS and as MHDD printed the menu screen, it froze on that line, #6. Another time, MHDD did boot with the ST3250823AS but it was very slow (took 3x as long about) and it did not detect anything at all. My motherboard is an Abit-AX8. When it boots up, the onboard raid rom detects the ST3250823AS. I can go into the sata raid bios and create array (if I had more sata hd's to try it) but the sata raid bios does not have any function to scan or even erase/format the disk.

So I think at this point, I can rule out my original assumption that this is just a soft MFT issue and now I was wondering about what my next course of action could be. I guess what I'm asking is, does my problem description sound like it could be the pcboard? I'm not familiar at all with pcboard replacement but I'm certainly not technologically illiterate and willing to spend some time reading up on it before trying anything. Also, I looked at the pcboard and there is no sign of any fire or melting. Also the hard drive itself was not mechanically harmed (I never dropped it or moved it). At this point, I've also already assumed the data gone so I'm mainly doing this out of curiosity. Thank you for taking the time to read through such a long post.

[drc]

If it detects in BIOS then I don't know of any reason for it not to show up in MHDD... Try booting to MHDD with the drive unplugged, select the channel that you know it would show up on, and hook up the drive after that. It should show up and let you check it out. You will at least be able to see the status registers and see if it is having issues dropping the BUSY signal or not.

[dime]

If it detects in BIOS then I don't know of any reason for it not to show up in MHDD... Try booting to MHDD with the drive unplugged, select the channel that you know it would show up on, and hook up the drive after that. It should show up and let you check it out. You will at least be able to see the status registers and see if it is having issues dropping the BUSY signal or not.

I will give that a shot soon. As a point of clarification, when the ST3250823AS is plugged in, the sata raid bios also takes longer to load than normal. And twice, it actually took about a minute before showing an error that said: (sic) Device initialization to be failed. Press <g> to reboot. Or something like that. It was very weird that the english on it was a bit off. The error came in place of where the sata raid bios would normally be.

[dime]

So I tried 2 things. First I left the SAMSUNGSP0812C plugged in, selected 6, then plugged in the ST3250823AS instead. And then I left both unplugged, selected 6, then plugged in the ST3250823AS.

Both times DRSC and DRDY were lighted up with a blue background and BUSY was lighted up with green.
This particular bootup, it's not freezing on the shift-f3 screen at least. But that line remains blank when it's the ST3250823AS plugged in. And I simply get "Drive is not ready." for any commands that I try.

So I try a reboot with the ST3250823AS plugged in and I get the sata bios error again. It says this:
HardWare Initiate failed, Please Check Device!!!
The Bios does not be installed. Press <g> to continue!

so I press <g> and it boots into MHDD, nothing in line 6, drive's not ready, etc. I plug in the SAMSUNGSP0812C and it shows up.

So I wouldn't say that the sata raid bios is detecting the hard drive. Not only that, having the hard drive plugged in at times seems to even force the bios to not be able to function properly.

[drc]

For starters I would plug the drive in a non-raid port or take the board out of raid mode if you're trying to get it to detect to make an image....


If you're not trying to make an image I would just go ahead and toss the drive, it sounds like it's definitely having issues with getting stuck on BUSY.

[dime]

For starters I would plug the drive in a non-raid port or take the board out of raid mode if you're trying to get it to detect to make an image....


If you're not trying to make an image I would just go ahead and toss the drive, it sounds like it's definitely having issues with getting stuck on BUSY.

Unfortunately, my motherboard's 4 sata ports are all part of its fakeraid, so I can't plug it anywhere else. However, the drive itself is not part of a raid, it's just a standalone drive. While the data on the drive is pretty much tossed (in my head). I'm curious and have enough time on my hands to want to try getting it back. Do you believe that replacing the pcb might help this situation?

[BlackST]

Search this forum and you'll know the answer(s). If the problem is the SA, buy the expensive gear needed, learn how to fix it and go, or send to a pro. There's always option 'd' as dump the drive.

[drc]

There's really no point in trying to fix it. Hard drive problems are so many and so different that if you don't work in a data recovery or computer repair shop you're never going to run into this particular problem again, and if you don't have a reason for working on it beyond curiosity you're wasting your time, which is fine, but I doubt many of the people here are going to put much effort into helping if they know its just a time-waster.

[dime]

Yeah, after thinking about this overnight, I came to the same conclusion. Well, reading more over these boards about the technical stuff about the SA. That and trying to find a website to even quote a price for the PC3000.

As my penultimate option, are there people here who would give me a quote on restoring this drive for me? The drive is in good cosmetic shape. It was anchored, padded, and cooled properly for it's entire lifespan and there were no clicks or scratchy noises before it died.

If not, then I found out I can always return it as the drive is under warranty until next year. Thank you again for taking the time to read through all this.

[harddrivespecialist]

Yeah, after thinking about this overnight, I came to the same conclusion. Well, reading more over these boards about the technical stuff about the SA. That and trying to find a website to even quote a price for the PC3000.

PC3000 costs thousands of $$$, plus it does not have one click solution

As my penultimate option, are there people here who would give me a quote on restoring this drive for me? The drive is in good cosmetic shape. It was anchored, padded, and cooled properly for it's entire lifespan and there were no clicks or scratchy noises before it died.

In order to give a quote, exact problem should be known. Someone should do diagnostics of your drive.

[dime]

I'm unfamiliar with the DR industry so am not aware of how these exchanges usually work. Should I be looking at professional companies to do the diagnosis for me? Or are there people here who can do it as well? I may be wrong, but I was of the hopeful (perhaps naive) opinion there may be freelancers here who can do it for me cheaper than sending it to a professional lab.

And completely off the record (I wouldn't hold anyone to this), could you give me a rough estimate of a best case scenario based on how I've described the drive so far? For example, given that there are no mechanical failures and no scratches on the platters, it's a simple (I understand simple is not the right word and it doesn't give you guys enough credit) matter of replacing the SA or pcb, how much would it cost for a DR lab or a freelancer here to do it? Again, I'm not asking for a written estimate but just general advice for whether or not a broke college student could even afford such a thing.

[harddrivespecialist]

Most of the people here either work for DR company or have their own lab.

Data recovery service starts somewhere around $200 and up. I believe average for this service is about $600 in USA.

[wiseleo]

If you don't need data from the drive, contact Seagate for warranty exchange.

If you do need the data, I don't touch firmware issues for less than $800. Is the data worth at least $1000? That's what you need to ask yourself.

By the way, DeepSpar will quote you $10000 for PC3000 and $4600 for DataExtractor. I am not joking.

There are only 3 companies in the world who make our equipment and software. Rest assured that well-equipped freelancers have the same requirement for equipment investment as the evil big labs.

If you are handy with electronics, you can access the diagnostic terminal on this drive and see what the drive thinks is wrong with itself. Search for 232 on this forum. You can watch, but you definitely should not type any commands at that point unless you know how to repair Seagate firmware.

WARNING: If the firmware is failing, it can get worse the more you play with the drive. For example, the drive can go from being barely alive and scannable to saying things like "Unable to load overlay" and basically refusing to boot. That is an actual Seagate diagnostic interface error message. At that point you will need to use more advanced techniques to revive the drive.

[BlackST]

College student or corporate manager, the prices figured here are correct and reasonable (a backup was a lot cheaper!)