Reformat / defect relocaton of SA on Maxtor

Hello everybody,

At present, what are the known solutions (HW/SW or both) to re-format or defect relocation in the SYSTEM area of MAXTOR Hdds ? This could be important -for example- if you can't record the modules because of bad sectors in the SA - recording is unsuccessful , or a bad sector came ot in the middle of a module.
Useful for re-using again a HDD if the data has no importance.
Thanks and regards.

why r u recording modules...just note down bad modules and rewrite good modules.....

PC3000 is used to rewrite SA.

add me on arfaizy13@hotmail.com

we will talk in detail there...

Hi BlackST
usually if the drive pass the Selfscan is good for reuse.
Of course there are certain things that must be done before start selfscan.

I have to explain : if some sectors in the SA are defective , recording AGAIN the modules affected by the error have no effect because no check is performed during rewriting of the new modules (in fact if you check AFTER recording the modules, the errors are still there). Is there a solution ? (This is not a problem of relocated sectors in the SA because they are - obviously - hidden , is the case of BAD sectors GROWN or developed during use)

if u record bad modules and rewrite them again then it will give same error.
try to rewrite good modules..

BlackST wrote:I have to explain : if some sectors in the SA are defective , recording AGAIN the modules affected by the error have no effect because no check is performed during rewriting of the new modules (in fact if you check AFTER recording the modules, the errors are still there). Is there a solution ? (This is not a problem of relocated sectors in the SA because they are - obviously - hidden , is the case of BAD sectors GROWN or developed during use)

Hi BlackST,
For drives having AltSA there are certain steps of selfscan that do format of the SA(that one normaly in use), then record the need things in it, finally switch the access to normal SA and continue with the scan.

As I know , for instance N40P and CALYPSO series don't have alternate SA but there's a copy of some modules. Those drives suffer of G-LIST corruption but this is not a problem... the trouble is when the affected modules are the zone table and the adaptive information. In case of VERY frequent power cycles or power supply malfunction it's sure those modules become corrupted as the behaviour of the drive. In all the failing drives I have seen probably the head has written something random doring power down or parking, probably corrupting sector header or something - a flaw on the power-down management on the firmware ?
In this case , nothing seem to work to record the modules again successfully at present.
Some ideas ?

Hi BlackST,
just for the N40P series Maxtor engineers start to implement AltSA ~ begging of 2003. Is not absolutely right but drives before this year of manufacture didn't have AltSA, and after that - have. Almoust all of the Calypso drives have AltSA.
But even they have this does not mean you can use it.
Most of the problems those drives suffer, especially N40P can be described with "instability of writting process". In a few words the process follow to an incorrect write to SA and damage. Thats why most users report that after power off/on there is "nobody home".

Hi Samo,

Then my theory was right... call it flaw on the firmware or instability of writing process or bad power down management... the SA gets damaged. In THAT case what should you do ? Rewriting modules is ineffective because of bad SA, AltSA exist but this doesn't mean we can use it... throw away all those drives ? (maybe we have a lot of donors for HS exchange

!)

Regards,

Hi BlackST,

call it flaw on the firmware or instability of writing process or bad power down management

Imho those are different type of malfunctions and they are manifested in different way in Maxtors. One is to have bad modues, other to have bad headers...

AltSA exist but this doesn't mean we can use it...

... that isn't what I meant :wink:

do aba to pchs conversion chek the uba for defects add them to plist the SA is now OK