Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 - Drive failure N40P

[netio]

I have a Maxtor DiamodMax plus 8 20 GB HDD on hand with very important Office Data that i would like to recover. The hdd was working perfectly until yesterday morning when it slowed down and on rebooting i ended up with a disk failure. The mobo still detects the HDD as N40P.

I have ran the Maxtor diagnostic tool - seatools and it detected the hdd as a 40GB and on running a 'L' long and 'S' Short test ... i endup getting an error.

"Exiting due to signal SIGSEGV"

Reading further regarding this problem, it seems like a firmware problem. I have called Seagate asking for a firmware for this particular model.. but they don't seem to have any firmware updated for it.

HDD Specs:

DiamondMax Plus 8
capacity 20GB
Code: NAR61590
LBA: 40718160
6E020L510231-ABA-KGGA-B4FEA

I was thinking of getting a similar drive for replacing the PCB board as a possible fix to retrieve the data. But so far i have had no luck. I have found similar capacity HDD but with different board B8FEA which probably wont work.

Therefore i come to you guys for help ... i have couple of questions
- would i be able to use a 40gb capacity HDD with the same board "B4FEA" ?
- if not, can i use a different board (B8FEA) but with the same specs and model HDD ?
- or can i find a firmware from somewhere that could possibly fix this problem ?

Any sort of help will be appreciated guys!

[pcimage]

It's not the PCB board.

This is classic firmware failure.

Fixable with PC3000 / Salvation.

Unfortunately NOT fixable with free software.

If you stand any chance of getting your data, do not use the drive any more, and get it into a DR company.

As you're in Canada, I'm sure Starling can help u out?

[FelixRuiz]

I have a Mxtor Diamond 8 Plus 20GB

6E020L 0510605
NAR61590
KMGA
SN: E1D5KSBE

Does anyone have the firmware or the loader file for this drive.

Thank you.

[Starling]

FelixRuiz, if you have PC3000 then you should have a big database with compatible loaders and firmware that comes with it.
If you don't have PC3000 you can't load loaders and write firmware, so you don't actually need this.

[Starling]

netio, it's not a PCB problem, but just to make sure you can try to swap the board from your bad drive to a good drive to see that it works good. You can try different capacities - it won't hurt.
If your drive is not clicking or beeping on startup then most likely it's a firmware problem and needs special expensive tools. Firmware is located on the platters, not on the PCB - that's why PCB swap won't help here.

[FelixRuiz]

I am actually using HDD Doctor For Maxtor By Salvation Data. Any Help?

[Starling]

http://files.hddguru.com/download/PC-30 ... re/Maxtor/