Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 - cannot enter console

[mindcrash]

I've got a Barracuda 7200.11 flashed to latest firmware but since a few days it still seems it contains the bug which makes the drive go 'BSY', when reading from the serial connection it shows the very famous 000000CC line every few seconds.

I'm currently trying to unbrick it because it contains a few hundred megabytes of important data (yes, I know - next time I will put important stuff on a non-Seagate based RAID 5 configuration)

Anyhow, I can't seem to get to the console using CTRL+Z

Did Seagate prevent messing around using the serial connection in the latest firmware and am I completely fracked now?

I rather not hope so

Anyway, any help, tips, tricks, etc. would be very much appreciated!

[zebong]

have you connected the rs232 cable ?

[mindcrash]

have you connected the rs232 cable ?

Yep, used a modified Nokia CA-42 cable (cannot afford something like PC3000 for personal use).

Cable also seems to work, when I create a loopback between TX and RX on the cable I can see my characters in the terminal.

Also like I said, I'm able to see the 000000CC error in the terminal when I don't isolate the PCB from the HDD using the cable.

So this practically rules out there's something wrong with the cable, and made me look at the HDD. Only I have no clue what the problem could be...

[pcimage]

What version of FW is (was) it?

[mindcrash]

What version of FW is (was) it?

I believe it's the new SD1A firmware. So Seagate drives can even be become bricked after applying the firmware which should fix that.

But I already figured out what was wrong. Due to the fact that my main computer seems to freeze everytime currently (think it's a rotten mobo) I decided to access the firmware through a laptop (due to the fact that I don't want a frozen Windows when entering commands to the firmware which obviously ends up with the disk being fubar). But it seems that you need to power the disk AND connect to the firmware on the same PC.

So I'll just wait until the parts for my new Core i7 build arrive, and then try again on that box.

While we are still on the subject: The commands required for unbricking a SD15 drive still apply to SD1A right?

[hddguy]

The commands are the same, but must say I have never seen one of these failures with SD1A firmware. Maybe someone can confirm whether these are affected or not before you begin a attempt at repairing.