PC3000 Portable and secondary SA

[kpeddie]

OK, so i bought a PC-3000 portable unit (probably a mistake). Having now played with it for a week and wondering if anyone can tell me, or hint me towards a possible solution to the following. If i have, say, a faulty WD Green drive and it clicks because it cant read the SA on faulty head 0, is there any way i can make it read SA on head 1. I know i can switch off the the head in ROM but then i wont be able to recover anything much due to translator. Portable doesnt have the ability to change headmap in RAM so im not sure what the solution is, if there is a solution.

Aim being to recover what data i can without doing a headswap or in preperation for a headswap.

thanks for any info

[labtech]

Does portable version support hot swap?

[kpeddie]

No, its had that feature removed! I know what you mean though i think, transfer p list, rebuild translator, board swap, read data minus the dead head? Think my Insight may help with that. If you know anyone wanting to buy a PC-3000 portable, i think i might have one for sale shortly!

[labtech]

No, sorry.

But yeah, that is what I was thinking or along the same lines.

[jono-ats]

I understand the license isn't transferable - hence, a secondary owner might have a problem buying updates. Is that correct?

[hddguy]

If you can read RAM then yo can adjust head map manually.

[HDD Spaz]

sounds like money well spent

I hate to say it but you was probably better off getting data compass if you could not afford full UDMA PC3k.

But manually altering RAM or smart hotswap are two possible solutions.

Or just change the heads.

Or outsource to a company with the right equipment and expertise.

[kpeddie]

Ye, i certainly wouldnt recommend it. It would be alright for a first go at data recovery but I already have things that do what it does, and does it quicker. If Ace actually would give you a proper summery of what its functions where id have never bought it and just plumped for the UDMA in the first place. Never mind, lesson learned. Just have to send them some more money for the proper thing!