HELP:Accidental Flash Maxtor DiamondMax 10 with DVD-Firmware

I am in need of some serious support...please read.

I own a Maxtor DiamondMax 10, Model 6L250R0, 250GB P-ATA133 Harddisk. The cover of the driver further reports:

Code:BAJ41G20 N,M,G,A
TLA: 6L250R0151M11

History:

Together with a friend i tried to flash the firmware of an Xbox360 DVD-drive, connected to my onboard S-ATA interface. For this you need to flash an altered firmware on to the DVD Drive using a tool called 'MKTFlash.exe'. With this tool you select an Interface port (e.g. ICH5-master, slave etc) hit Enter and it writes Without device verification or something similair in a DOS environment.

Right after hitting the Enter key i noticed something was wrong. I saw my Harddrive LED flashing in stead of the LED on the XBox360....
In short: the harddrive now reports an a ToshibaSamsung 943 DVD-Drive in stead of an Harddisk.

This happened the day before christmas, and no luck since then trying to find a solution. I still think it should be possible to revive the drive with the correct firmware, as only this part should be affected.....

I know it was a tremendous stupid action, but if someone may be able to provide me with the solution i would be eternally grateful!!

Thank you in advance for your solutions/two cents....

There is only one way to save this drive but for that u need pc3000 did u chk the hdd in MHDD .

rameez wrote:There is only one way to save this drive but for that u need pc3000 did u chk the hdd in MHDD .

Thank you for your quick response.

No, I did not (yet) check the drive with MHDD. Is there some special diagnostic feature which could help me?

Once obtained i was hoping i could 'simply' rewrite the obtained firmware to the hard drive ending up with an OK drive.... am i mistaking?

Can 6L250R0 accept DVD firmware ???????

vlaszlo wrote:Can 6L250R0 accept DVD firmware ???????

The power the MKTFlash tool lies within its abillity to bluntly write data to whatever device you select on a specified PATA/SATA port. If the firmware of this device is upgradeble without special protection (such as Mode B with certain optical drives) it will try (and most of the time succeeds!!) to overwrite the firmware with the firmware of your choice.

The harddisk now reports in bios as a ToshibaSamsung DVD Drive...so it is, apparantly, possible to flash the drive...

Can someone help me tot obtain the firmware i need? I am gladly willing to experiment with MKTflash to reflash... ????

Freediver007 wrote:
vlaszlo wrote:Can 6L250R0 accept DVD firmware ???????

The power the MKTFlash tool lies within its abillity to bluntly write data to whatever device you select on a specified PATA/SATA port. If the firmware of this device is upgradeble without special protection (such as Mode B with certain optical drives) it will try (and most of the time succeeds!!) to overwrite the firmware with the firmware of your choice.

The harddisk now reports in bios as a ToshibaSamsung DVD Drive...so it is, apparantly, possible to flash the drive...

This seems very weird to me... First of all, the HDD firmware has to have the same ATA handlers, that can handle the 'firmware upload' request from MKTFlash. Let's say they have. Then you upload a FW based on a specific 8051 architecture to a Maxtor HDD. After uploading, the HDD installs the FW and it is able to respond to your "IDENTIFY DEVICE" ATA request, which means that the HDD needs to have the exact same architecture (8051), otherwise it won't 'understand' the code at all. And as far as I know, there is NO HDD firmware at all, that is based on the 8051 architecture (although i must say that i am not 100% sure on this point).

I did look at the Maxtor FW however. The firmware has a complete different layout than the one from that x360 DVD drive. The last one is just one 'big' file (although it is cut into equally pieces of course, because of its bankswapping) and the first one consists of different 'modules' that differ greatly in size. So EVEN if the Maxtor would run 8051, then the layout of the file is completely different and I would find it very weird that the Maxtor even would be able to find the init vector.

So if you are not BS-ing here and telling the truth (I don't know why you would be lying), this is all a VERY big coincidence and it all seems HIGHLY unlikely to me...

But then again, what's the fun in making up a story like this ... So I am very much puzzled as to what is happening here

aimtrading wrote:
Freediver007 wrote:
vlaszlo wrote:Can 6L250R0 accept DVD firmware ???????

The power the MKTFlash tool lies within its abillity to bluntly write data to whatever device you select on a specified PATA/SATA port. If the firmware of this device is upgradeble without special protection (such as Mode B with certain optical drives) it will try (and most of the time succeeds!!) to overwrite the firmware with the firmware of your choice.

The harddisk now reports in bios as a ToshibaSamsung DVD Drive...so it is, apparantly, possible to flash the drive...

This seems very weird to me... First of all, the HDD firmware has to have the same ATA handlers, that can handle the 'firmware upload' request from MKTFlash. Let's say they have. Then you upload a FW based on a specific 8051 architecture to a Maxtor HDD. After uploading, the HDD installs the FW and it is able to respond to your "IDENTIFY DEVICE" ATA request, which means that the HDD needs to have the exact same architecture (8051), otherwise it won't 'understand' the code at all. And as far as I know, there is NO HDD firmware at all, that is based on the 8051 architecture (although i must say that i am not 100% sure on this point).

I did look at the Maxtor FW however. The firmware has a complete different layout than the one from that x360 DVD drive. The last one is just one 'big' file (although it is cut into equally pieces of course, because of its bankswapping) and the first one consists of different 'modules' that differ greatly in size. So EVEN if the Maxtor would run 8051, then the layout of the file is completely different and I would find it very weird that the Maxtor even would be able to find the init vector.

So if you are not BS-ing here and telling the truth (I don't know why you would be lying), this is all a VERY big coincidence and it all seems HIGHLY unlikely to me...

But then again, what's the fun in making up a story like this ... So I am very much puzzled as to what is happening here

Thank you for your reply. I can assure you I am not the type to F%^&ck around and BS-ing people (although I am Dutch... ;-)

). Unfortunally, I still have not found the time to run the MHDD diagnostic tool. As soon as i have, i will report back you all. Perhaps i will even post some pictures of my Bios and system (although the scepticals among us will say that those could easilly be manipulated... :-P

), for the sake of science, my horror, laughter and education...

yes, u can post some picture about your hdd put in computer and screen of monitor detect hdd, ok.

Freediver007 wrote:
aimtrading wrote:[quote="Freediver007
Thank you for your reply. I can assure you I am not the type to F%^&ck around and BS-ing people (although I am Dutch... ). Unfortunally, I still have not found the time to run the MHDD diagnostic tool. As soon as i have, i will report back you all. Perhaps i will even post some pictures of my Bios and system (although the scepticals among us will say that those could easilly be manipulated... ), for the sake of science, my horror, laughter and education...

Ah, maybe an explanation is that the drive is in 'safe mode' !! You see, there is FW both on chip and on the platters. The one on the chip is a very 'basic' loader. I think it is very well possible that the HDD sees a FW that is completely wrong, ignores it and switches to safe mode, that can then accept the 'identify device' ATA ... I think I read somewhere that Maxtors do this automatically ... That might be a very good explanation for this weird behaviour. So it's not the ATA handler in the FW you have uploaded, but the handler in the ROM on the logicboard. Still, it is weird that it uses the ID string from the FW then ...