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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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Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 4th, 2016, 11:25

Hi,

I have two Samsung 1 TB Momentus-B series, Model ST1000LM024, one with head problem and another which could possibly serve as donor.

Those drives have two P/N : "HDD P/N" and another P/N located on a small sticker below the main one.

Patient
Code:
Model: ST1000LM024
HDD P/N : HN-M101MBB
P/N : E1343-G84A-BC8KM

REV. A
DOM: 09/2013
Site: DGT

Donor?
Code:
Model: ST1000LM024
HDD P/N : HN-M101MBB/AV1
P/N : E1653-G14A-AZAFF

REV. A
FW: 2AR20003
DOM: 10/2013
Site: DGT

What about the second part of the "HDD P/N" (eg. AV1) ?

Does matching the "HDD P/N" suffice or should one match some blocks of the detailed P/N too?

Thanks.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 4th, 2016, 13:05

https://www.donordrives.com/blog/matching-guide#samsung

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 5th, 2016, 10:33

Thank you jermy,

I knew the link you mentioned, but it doesn't answer my questions.

According to Donor Drive's head swap matching guide, you have to match 3 criteria for Samsung's newer drives :
1) Model (that is the case)
2) Heads map
3) Preamplificator

Well, these are quite general requirements, not only for Samsung.

The fact is that Donor Drive's suggests getting the heads map and preamplification using a PC-3000 card or equivalent.

I'm however almost certain, that these informations are "encoded" inside the information printed on the stickers.
P/N can mean "product number", but also "parts number".

I'm looking for some similar "sticker reverse engineering" as what has been done for Toshiba 2.5'' hard drives here:
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32197

The drive is a Samsung's Momentus M8 series.

So, to summarize, my questions are :

a) What does the 1st block of the "HDD P/N" encode? eg. HN-M101MBB
b) What does the 2nd block of the "HDD P/N" encode? eg. HN-M101MBB
c) What does the 3rd optional block of the "HDD P/N" encode? (eg. HN-M101MBB/AV-1

d) What does the 1st block of the bottom P/N encode ? eg. E1653-G14-AZAFF
e) What does the 2nd block of the bottom P/N encode ? eg. E1653-G14-AZAFF
f) What does the 3rd block of the bottom P/N encode ? eg. E1653-G14-AZAFF

Thanks.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 5th, 2016, 11:38

SOSdonnees,

Yes , there is something with Samsung drives

we need to clear the head stack compatibility rule ..

i will follow your post please if you find good info post it here

thanks

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 5th, 2016, 11:57

With Seagate actually manufacturing these drives for Samsung, I'm wondering if we should also be looking at the first three digits of the Serial number. Has anyone ever looked to see if there's a correlation of the first three in the serial number?

I'm pretty sure the part after the / is a region specific code likely relating to the firmware. For example I notice the /JP1 is mostly found in Asia, so I'm assuming that JP = Japan. Whereas /AV1 is what's most common in the Americas. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 5th, 2016, 11:58

Head compatibility with ST1000LM024 is quite easy when you've got a pile of donors to pick from.

An incompatible preamp will not spin up, so place the PCB from the patient drive onto the donor in question. If it spins up, the heads will be compatible. If not, then they're not.

You can confirm this by looking at the terminal output, incompatible heads will spit out a preamp error.

I don't have info on how to establish this just by looking at the label though, but matching the date as close as possible is a good way of narrowing it down.
Last edited by Nick_CT on April 5th, 2016, 12:05, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 5th, 2016, 12:00

Very interesting, Nick. :-)

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 6th, 2016, 10:05

Thanks jono-ats and nick_ct

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 6th, 2016, 10:25

Nick_CT wrote:An incompatible preamp will not spin up, so place the PCB from the patient drive onto the donor in question. If it spins up, the heads will be compatible. If not, then they're not.

You can confirm this by looking at the terminal output, incompatible heads will spit out a preamp error.


this is correct.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 6th, 2016, 15:21

Samsung drives for HSA exchange compatibility you need donor drive with:
Matching model number example: ST1000LM024 , or USB drive with model number ST1000LM014 is same as ST1000LM024 inside.
Matching second part of part number, example G84A, G14A, G141, G841. The third character represents numbers of heads.
Closest manufacturing date for safety sake.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 6th, 2016, 15:53

matching second or first off part number ? its not clear for me
thanks

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 6th, 2016, 16:52

H13 wrote:matching second or first off part number ? its not clear for me
thanks


st500lm012.jpg
st500lm012.jpg (56.7 KiB) Viewed 18241 times

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 7th, 2016, 6:06

Hi , saltwater,

Thanks :)

this is what we look for

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 7th, 2016, 10:36

data-medics wrote:With Seagate actually manufacturing these drives for Samsung, I'm wondering if we should also be looking at the first three digits of the Serial number. Has anyone ever looked to see if there's a correlation of the first three in the serial number?

I'm pretty sure the part after the / is a region specific code likely relating to the firmware. For example I notice the /JP1 is mostly found in Asia, so I'm assuming that JP = Japan. Whereas /AV1 is what's most common in the Americas. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.


Well,
In India We Have Many JP1,AV1 Etc ,So Possibly your observation is not so correct

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

April 7th, 2016, 10:42

BTW ,
Nick And Saltwater Thank You both of you ,Very interesting and eye opening observation from both of you ,Everyday seems to be a new learning day for me ,But in 1TB i have never seen less then 4 heads in this series :D .I Get Many of these and i just love em

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

May 6th, 2016, 10:56

Today my theory as "matching second part of part number, example G84A, G14A, G141, G841" has been failed.
I have changed HSA from patient ST500LM014 drive, P/N: F8342-G92A-A11SU PCB Date:20150802 with
Donor ST500LM012 drive, P/N:F6442-G92A-B3NN3, PCB Date:20150808.

After a head swap, patient send a "Preamp Error" message by terminal. Off course the donor drive after HSA changed back still works fine.
BUT!
I realise something! Matching second part of part number, example G84A, G14A, G141, G841 does not matter!!

After you start a Samsung drive, before it spins up checks HSA preamp revision ID.
It looks like this:
Code:
ActiveFW : 00FWVer : 0001SATA PLL cal doneDDR size detected = 8MB DDR size detected = 8MB*PAUNI_L2957*PA VID=0006 PN=0009 Rev=0002- PA_UNI Found*PAUNI_L2957*PA VID=0006 PN=0009 Rev=0002- PA_UNI FoundU


So you have to pass "PA VID", "PN", "Rev", and "PAUNI" number
Closest manufacturing date
....and same head map

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

December 16th, 2016, 16:28

Nick_CT has the answer.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

December 23rd, 2016, 9:14

Wow, this nice topics. Thanks for the informative post.

Re: Samsung ST1000LM024 : head stack compatibility questions

December 23rd, 2016, 14:46

This is good info. we also have our own way to identify donor
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