Diamondmax 10 dead as a stone

[shaun]

Hi all,

I got a Diamond Max 10 in which obviously has a fault in the electronics. The disk is not even trying to spin up, the motor pins are stuck at 0V. The L7250 is not visibly blown, the derived voltages (+3,3 via NPN transistor, -5V, +1,8V and the +18V for the high side gate drive) are there. I'm in the office at the moment, therefore I've not checked for activity on the oscillator pins of the Beagle chip. Is there a common failure on these drives?

[N.C.]

Hi all,

I got a Diamond Max 10 in which obviously has a fault in the electronics. The disk is not even trying to spin up, the motor pins are stuck at 0V. The L7250 is not visibly blown, the derived voltages (+3,3 via NPN transistor, -5V, +1,8V and the +18V for the high side gate drive) are there. I'm in the office at the moment, therefore I've not checked for activity on the oscillator pins of the Beagle chip. Is there a common failure on these drives?

The common failure is the users exactly.
Post a picture from the pcb, maybe we can help.

Janos

[shaun]

Here it is. Now don't tell me you've never seen a PCB
You were looking for holes in chips, right? Sorry, no holes. As I wrote, all internally generated voltages are fine.
The drive locks up the IDE, MHDD only shows ERR.

Attachments

[N.C.]

Did you check the 3.3V and -5V?

For me, (without the pcb in my hands) the RAM chip is KO, and maybe the MCU too.
Does the drive flashing the HDD LED if you plug the IDE cable?

[shaun]

As I wrote above: yes, I checked all the voltages (although for ripple with the scope in the mean time). All are fine: +1,8 for the CPU core, +3,3, -5.

Did you mean "knocked out" or did you accidentally swap the letters and wanted to tell me that the two chips may be "ok"? RAM? Is this a usual failure for these drives? I know very well that RAMs do fail, I've swapped RAMs down to 2114, 5101 and 4116 types, but I've never done so on hard drives. Obviously a lack of experience
As the RAM can easily be swapped, I'll get an identical chip from a good drive and give it a try.

And no, the HDD did not light up.

[N.C.]

As I wrote above: yes, I checked all the voltages (although for ripple with the scope in the mean time). All are fine: +1,8 for the CPU core, +3,3, -5.

Did you mean "knocked out" or did you accidentally swap the letters and wanted to tell me that the two chips may be "ok"? RAM? Is this a usual failure for these drives? I know very well that RAMs do fail, I've swapped RAMs down to 2114, 5101 and 4116 types, but I've never done so on hard drives. Obviously a lack of experience
As the RAM can easily be swapped, I'll get an identical chip from a good drive and give it a try.

And no, the HDD did not light up.

I have seen one case with RAM failure.
The drive don't want to spin up, flashes the LED, and the RAM does some extra heat (not too much).
This is why i asking.
Anyway, because your drive holds the IDE bus, i think the MCU is gone too.

This is what i can help you remotely.
If you want to replace the PCB, you shoud match this:
M,x,x,M in the 4 letter code, and the B2GBA.
This is enough.

Janos

[shaun]

Thank you,
so I'm looking for a K,x,x,A B2GBA PCB. U401 should still be swapped, right?

//Just pulled a KGCA B2GBA (working, but with some bad sectors) off the shelf.
Now I know what I'll do with the rest of the day

[N.C.]

No, in this drive you don't need to swap nothing.
Just replace.

Janos

[shaun]

Janos,

you're probably wrong with this.
I have swapped the PCBs between the known-good 160GB KGCA drive and the dead 120GB KGBA.
The 160GB spins up with the PCB from the dead 120GB, but identifies as SABRE.
After swapping the ROM from the 160GB's PCB, it works fine.

The 120GB stays dead, the motor does not even try to spin with either PCB.
What's left - head amp?

[harddrivespecialist]

Those 4 letters on those Maxtor drives have nothing to do with a board.
You just have to match a code or a processor number.

[shaun]

Ok, I have two PCB, both with the G2GBA label, both with the same processor. Both boards run on the 160GB HDA, none on the 120GB HDA. But: they only work on the 160GB HDA when the ROM originally corresponding to this HDA is fitted, otherwise, the drive inits forever and identfies itself as SABRE.

[harddrivespecialist]

Maybe the other board has some issues.

[shaun]

What kind of issue do you mean? Both boards work well on the 160GB HDA, as long as the ROM for this HDA is soldered onto the PCB. Both won't work with the 120GB HDA, no spinning, IDE bus locks up. No noise at all, the motor does not even try to start. The motor connections are stuck at 0V.

So there MUST be something within the 120GB HDA telling the PCB not to start the motor. But what? What does the firmware on the PCB do when it can't communicate with the head amp? I assume there is a serial bus to the head amp...

[r3712]

Sounds like HR problem.

[N.C.]

Janos,

you're probably wrong with this.
I have swapped the PCBs between the known-good 160GB KGCA drive and the dead 120GB KGBA.
The 160GB spins up with the PCB from the dead 120GB, but identifies as SABRE.
After swapping the ROM from the 160GB's PCB, it works fine.

The 120GB stays dead, the motor does not even try to spin with either PCB.
What's left - head amp?

Becasue you don't match the ROM code in the pcb....
And with ROM chip swap, you does rom matching, this is why i am right.

[N.C.]

Those 4 letters on those Maxtor drives have nothing to do with a board.
You just have to match a code or a processor number.

Disagree.

Processor are widely used on many ROM versions, so this number almost have no meaning at all.
But the 4 letter code shows the head and preamp type, and this HAVE meaning, because the rom tryig to use different preamp, or wrong power for MR, the result can be anything.

Janos

[N.C.]

What kind of issue do you mean? Both boards work well on the 160GB HDA, as long as the ROM for this HDA is soldered onto the PCB. Both won't work with the 120GB HDA, no spinning, IDE bus locks up. No noise at all, the motor does not even try to start. The motor connections are stuck at 0V.

So there MUST be something within the 120GB HDA telling the PCB not to start the motor. But what? What does the firmware on the PCB do when it can't communicate with the head amp? I assume there is a serial bus to the head amp...

Yes, there is a small serial connection on the preamp's connector, but the communication is very simple.
It don't have nothing wich can prevent the spinup in calypso/sabre drives.*
Additionally i have never seen this before (known working pcb don't spin up the drive on bad HDA).
Except totally shorted/burned preamp chips...


* other drives have, but this maxtor dm9/10 don't have.

[shaun]

No one an idea about this drive? I'll check some things these days, but it's still a miracle to me