Switch to full style
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
Post a reply

ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 8:26

This drive was manufactured in January 2024, the smooth chip is burned and the area around it.
I have a donor board from April 2024, when moving the ROM chip over to the donor board, the terminal output says Flash boot Code Digital Signature Verification Failure.
Do these newer drives have some kind of signature verification for the ROM? If so any solution for board swap or is repairing the original board the only option?

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 11:33

I believe that the digital signature in the ROM needs to be matched to the MCU. One solution would be to transfer the adaptives, rather than the entire ROM, to a compatible donor PCB. Another solution might be to patch the donor's signature into the patient ROM. I have done the latter for several people, but have never received any feedback, so I don't know if my method works.

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 12:37

Here is the patient and donor ROM I am working with. I tried importing adaptives with PC3K but it says unable to setup heads map info.
I'll be for sure to give feedback with any help you provide. You taught me useful info about WD module 109 last week :)

I've tried manually moving CAP, RAP and SAP over to the donor ROM manually but F3RomExplorer is unable to recalculate CRC. I'm probably doing it wrong. Just trying to learn. Thanks for your help once again.
Attachments
patient and donor rom.zip
(1.19 MiB) Downloaded 265 times

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 13:12

Donor ROM with patient's RAP/SAP/CAP is attached.

Transferring the digital signature is not necessary because the BOOTFW is the same.
Attachments
donor_with_patient_adaptives.7z
(271.17 KiB) Downloaded 245 times

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 13:47

So that worked, drive boots now, but clicking and servo errors. I guess the power surge made it to the preamp. :(

So can you tell me how you transferred the adaptives over successfully? Am I wrong for trying to use F3RomExplorer?

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 13:51

I used F3RomExplorer to tell me where the RAP/SAP/CAP segments were located, and then I used a hex editor (HxD) to do the patching.

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 13:56

After manual patching do you have to recalculate CRC?

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 14:01

No, the CRC is included in the segment. For example, the RAP is located at 0x80000 and has a size of 0xB6000. Just carve out this area from the patient and paste it into the donor.

BTW, you can measure the resistance of the preamp's positive and negative supplies. That will tell you if it is shorted. If you upload a photo of the HDA pads, I can show you where to measure.

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

July 31st, 2024, 15:02

Unfortunately I don't have access to a camera. Not allowed due to data privacy rules.
Even posting ROMs on here for help is a big gray area for me but I want to learn.

The board is a 100870255 REV A.

Re: ST4000DM004 Burned motor controller

August 13th, 2024, 10:45

Test This ROM if possible.

U have to use the same donor PCB as mentioned Donor ROM
Attachments
Test-ROM.rar
(278.82 KiB) Downloaded 217 times
Post a reply