Seagate Momentus PSD ST91608220AS -Spins but not detected

[childin]

Hi,
This HDD came as an OEM on my 4yr old sony laptop. Recently while trying to wake up the laptop from sleep, i got a blue screen that disappeared before i could read and system tried to restart. And then got a message saying no OS found.

Went into Bios and found HDD not detected. Bought a SATA to usp adapter and hooked up the HDD to another laptop and ran seagte tools test.
It would not detect the HDD at all. The disks seem to be spinning fine like a nomrmal HDD. Just doesn't get detected. Has anyone come across such issue?

I found a post with similar issue but with a different HDD model. I am not sure, how to run any commands on the HDD, as i am not even able to detect it.
Any help in resolving this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[ipx]

Hi.

If it spins - means, it passed the 'power on' and 'self-check' tests. If it can not be detected, then, apparently, it's having trouble reading the SA (system area) - as that's where, i.e., the serial numbers are kept. You need to access the serial port (terminal) on the drive for further diagnosis - you need a special cable for that.

[childin]

Thanks for the reply ipx. Do you know where i can get that cable? I have ordered a identical HDD (factory refurbished) and i should have it here today/tomorrow. Do you think swapping out the circuit board would help?

Thanks

[harddrivespecialist]

Most likely its heads unable to read and PCB is not a typical problem on those drives.

[childin]

Is there a way for me to read some error codes and tell that its a issue with the head?

Thanks

[harddrivespecialist]

you have to get terminal access as ipx suggested.

[childin]

can you please explain how i can get terminal access and required cable?

Thanks

[ipx]

read this link:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807- ... 0011-hdds/

[ipx]

I've attached the according file. But be advised - the instructions there are for a different issue.

Attachments

7200.11.doc

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[childin]

Thank you ipx. I went ahead and ordered the cable. I found some posts with a command list. Please share any info you think might help me diagnose the issue.

Thanks again!

[labtech]

Thank you ipx. I went ahead and ordered the cable. I found some posts with a command list. Please share any info you think might help me diagnose the issue.

Thanks again!

First thing to do is understanding the terminal output once the drive spins up.

[childin]

Thank you labtech.

I got the cable today and i had received the spare hard drive Friday. I hooked up the refurbished hard drive and found that it doesn't have any partition table on it. guess i will have to create one and partition it...
But, before i ripped off the connector on the cable to use the two wires for terminal access, I tried swapping out the PCB boards just to see if the drive would get recognized. Seems like it did....my original drive gets recognized with the PCB that came on the refurbished identical drive...But it still shows me that there is not partition table....where my drive had 2 logical partitions before it stopped working...

Does this prove anything? do you think the disks & head are working fine on my original HDD?

Please let me know...

Thanks,

[childin]

Is there a way to recover my partition table on the original HDD since it is being detected now? sea tools tested it fine, without any errors, so i am assuming the disks+heads are fine. I think i need a way to recover the partition table so that i can make this disk bootable again?

Thanks

[childin]

Can i use testdisk without hurting my data on the disk?

[harddrivespecialist]

Don't use testdisk. Your first step is to make a sector by sector image to other drive.

[childin]

Thanks,
What software do i use for that? Do i need to have both drives connected for that? Please note that i only have one working PCB...the one that came with the refurbished drive...

Thanks