Seagate Momentus 5400.6 (ST9160314AS) Diagnosis

[Cris]

Hi Guys

Purely for the sake of interest and learning (I no longer have the drive), can someone please let me know if my interpretation of some terminal output is correct?

The drive (appears to) return the correct model and serial number, but returns an LBA size of 0.

In the terminal, the output until Ctrl + Z was:
------------------------------------------
Rst 0x08M
RW cmd 0002 req = 89 3E 00 00 17 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 8C 08 00 87 97 09 00 08 8C 08 00
opts = 00001121
RW Err = 43110081
RW cmd 0002 req = 89 3E 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 8C 08 00 87 97 09 00 08 8C 08 00
opts = 00001121
RW Err = 43110081
RW cmd 0002 req = 75 5F 02 00 17 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 8C 08 00 87 97 09 00 08 8C 08 00
opts = 00001121
RW Err = C3160084
RW cmd 0002 req = 75 5F 02 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 8C 08 00 87 97 09 00 08 8C 08 00
opts = 00001121
RW Err = 43110081

ASCII Diag mode
F3 T>
------------------------------------------

After some searching, I found a site that said "RW Err = 43110081" means RW_EDAC_HW_UNCORR_ERR.

Am I correct in thinking this probably means the drive has bad sectors (UNC equivalent) in the service area?

Thanks in advance

Cris

[dmarques]

I think heads are failing and already can't read a part of the SA.

[Cris]

I think heads are failing and already can't read a part of the SA.

Thanks for your reply

[Cris]

I now have the drive back, after referring the user to a data recovery company. The user decided the data was not worth the recovery cost; I believe they had good backups, so there were only a few files they lost.

Anyway, now that I have it again, I want to try and recover the data for learning.

I dug out my old SD Doctor and downloaded the latest software (version 6.0) - there seems to be some new features.

I connected the drive and used the 7200.11 / 7200.12 Series section. I was able to backup all the modules except 001D and 002B, however 001D seemed to read after the second attempt. Can anyone confirm what these modules are for?

I was thinking I should try clearing SMART and the G-List and then regenerate the translator.

Can anyone advise if these functions will work on the Momentus 5400.6 series on the SD Doctor, using the 7200.11 / 7200.12 fixes section? It just matters that they are F3 architecture right?

Thanks

[Russwinters]

As mentioned, you likely won't get to far without a compatible, functional set of heads. That is kind of the tricky part on these Seagates as more and more often it is very difficult to find compatible heads.

[Cris]

Just to conclude this thread; I ended up having some luck

This is a brief summary of what I did:

1. Cleaned up the HSA PCB contacts with an eraser.

2. Cleared the SMART log and regenerated the translator (using SD Doctor); this restored the native max LBA and stopped the original error messages in the terminal.

3. Attempted to image the drive, but after about LBA 71,000,000 the sectors were all reported as UNC.

4. Used the fix "Partial Sector Accessibility" feature in SD Doctor.

5. Imaged the entire drive with no major problems (only 44 sectors read ignoring ECC).