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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 2:24

All,

I've been trying to rescue a hard drive that's been dropped. The heads have crashed and this has been a nightmare. The PCB wasn't functioning for the longest time but then I was able to find another PCB that works...but... the firmware doesn't exactly match. To make matters worse in order for me to get any output I have to attach the PCB (from a donor drive that isn't exactly running the exact same firmware as the patient drive's PCB which I know is beyond repair.) to the drive it came with and power it up. After I break in and /2 Z I then carefully transfer the PCB over to the damaged hard drive assembly and screw it in. Then try and spin it up. The assembly freaks out for about 10 seconds then I can hear the heads come to rest and it stops buzzing and reports to the console it's spun up. Fantastic right? yea no. I dump the defective sector list (F3 T>V1) and it's bad. Like really bad. Here is a snip:

Head 0: entries 155 slips 2ACD
Head 1: entries 270 slips 106D
Head 2: entries 265 slips 403
Head 3: entries BB slips 290
Total Entries 6E5 Total Slips 41CD

Fab. So then I decide to try the BSY fix. Long story short I run the infamous m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22. The drive freaks out for a bit and then locks itself down. Here is another snip:

F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22

BoxPadding Count[ Upper:00000003 Lower:00000003 Left:00000001 Right:00000004]
BoxPadding Debug OFF

LED:000000BC FAddr:00007A4C
LED:000000BC FAddr:00007A4C
LED:000000BC FAddr:00007A4C
LED:000000BC FAddr:00007A4C
etc ...

At that point I can somehow power it down, but of course not remove the board until I've heard the platters stop spinning and not have the heads crash into them, but then I am back to where I started. If I try and power cycle the drive that doesn't work. I have not been able to Identify the last errors put out. I've tried googling the LED:000000BC but I can't find much other than people using the BSY fix.

If you've made it this far thank you SO much for taking this much time. Here are my questions.

What does the LED:000000BC mean?
What is the second parameter being displayed? FAddr? What does that stand for?
How worried should I be that I am getting that error when I try and reformat the first outside partition?
Do I need to provide any more data here for people to help me?
Can anyone here even help me?

Thank you,

l0ft

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 3:16

I hope that this is your own drive...
First if you don't have the knowledge, don't do it.
You have now merged two drives adaptive info's into one, and after that done commands that you don't understand.

IF the data is important, take it to a pro....if not, bin it.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 3:59

It's getting worse day-by-day with people performing their own DIY surgery on drives, without having a clue what they are doing :-(

This one is so bad on so many levels.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 4:33

You performed a DIY hotswap on F3! :shock: :mrgreen:

I'm afraid this is going to be REALLY tough even for a very good pro.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 4:45

pcimage wrote:It's getting worse day-by-day

Yup, and the bad thing is that WE'RE getting them in the end :(

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 9:51

To me the drive is royally screwed. It could have been a relatively simple job in the beginning.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 10:04

Well thats too bad. Yes it is my drive. I wanted to see if it could be done, but i guess i just made too many mistakes. Thank you for pointing out the adaptive info. Ive wanted to learn how to do this for a while but i dont have the money for school. So i've been trying to teach myself. I don't suppose anyone knows the specifics of the fail code that i posted? Is something currupted? Misaligned? This would have been nice to recover. I am gong to keep trying i guess. I can still get a term it still spins up. Thanks for your time.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 16:27

Alright so I did some more searching on this forum and google. While I doubt anyone will even point me in the right direction to even try reconstructing the adaptive info on the drive I will ask this. Is this adaptive info referred to as anything else? Also this adaptive info is the information specific to the platters themselves correct? What parts are unusable, or bad or if there are subtle imperfections in the heads or something right? At least this way I'd know what I am trying to learn more about.

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 16:39

How much do you pay for some real lessons on the subject ? Auction open...

Re: Strange TMOS Error Code

January 28th, 2013, 17:33

ha! I don't know. The only time I've ever seen DR classes advertised was when I was at university and it was part of the tuition... What do you want to start the bid at Black?
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