My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

[jono-ats]

I recently purchased Salvation's product (above) to try to help with Seagate's notoriously hard-to-navigate firmware repairs.

I tried to do a little research on this forum before I bought as to whether their product was a wise purchase, but I was confused by the answers -- sometimes which were completely opposite.

I have a Momentus 80 GB drive that doesn't click and the heads are OK, but it won't come ready.

I sent a brief description of a drive's problem (can't load app code) and a log from a PC3000 to Laura. I asked her if the tool had a "one button" repair for this problem, and she said no, but led me to believe their product could fix my problem.

I'm trying to use the product now.

Would anyone be interested if I were to publish my experience and impressions of that product and Salvation's tech support on this forum, as objectively as I can, step-by-step?

Jon

[BlackST]

Yes, even if you point out your need for quick fix solutions... Anyway I use very complicated hw and tools and instruments and always need to work around solutions, but always achieved results.

[craig6928]

i would allso like to hear about salvation data products or how too

[cgallery]

Sure, I'd like to hear.

[rchadwick]

Me too. I'd still like to figure out how to use mine without it crashing.

[jono-ats]

Yes, even if you point out your need for quick fix solutions... Anyway I use very complicated hw and tools and instruments and always need to work around solutions, but always achieved results.

I'm not sure that I need "quick-fix" solutions as much as a way to REALLY understand how Seagates work and what the (firmware) repair options are. Of all the drives, these are the most arcane and mysterious, and the hardest to do firmware fixes on.

[salvationlaura]

Hi, Jon,

Sorry for the unclear email. I would like to offer some solution here. From the log, it is "ERR App Code " problem. It goes to F>repair directly and you want to recover data from this disk. It is a difficult problem in the data recovery industry. However, we would like to try our best.

There are the solutions for this disk"

1) The PCB diagnosis. Is this HD repaired by others or the PCB is original one? Sometimes, the corrupted PCB will cause the " app code error". So you can replace the PCB from a mataching donor;
2) Second step, because it is a APP error, so you can load a matching APP Code to this disk; As said your HD status is always busy, please ignore it and "Load from HDD", then load the APP code, power off/on to see if this HD can be recognized;
3)Third, the last solution.From our expreience, it can be caused by a head stack problem. You may have to open the HD and replace with a compataible head stack.

Please try the above steps. Any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.

However, as I said frist, it is really a big problem for all the data recovery business, I wish you good luck.

Regards

Laura

[jono-ats]

After I ordered the HDD-Seagate kit, it arrived very quickly from China.

The documentation supplied was OK considering that it was probably written originally in Mandarin and then translated.

The device was basically a box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with various wires, connectors, and adapters. Notably absent was SATA to IDE adapter, but that was not a problem.

The software must be registered. The process took a bit longer than expected; it was not automatic and I had to contact Laura, who promptly provided a key. Among the CDs was a software disk with .rar files, but I have not yet found the instructions about what to do with it, e.g. how to load it into a library.

I connected a working donor Momentus drive to test it, and it was able to ID the drive and save the firmware.

One thing that seems to be minimal on the interface is safety nets. In other words, if you press a button but did not set up the hardware condition for the software to succeed, there are few warning screens to tell you that you have done something wrong or something is missing.

I then hooked up the original (defective) drive. It would not ID or come out of busy mode. The PC3000 was much more revealing about the actual fault and why the drive would not come ready (in this case, unable to load app code).

When I tried to save firmware modules for this bad drive, I did get error messages, but just that the firmware saving process failed; not why.

Oddly, when I went to check the firmware (it has firmware check and read only firmware check buttons) they reported "OK" but clearly it was not . . .

I sent an e-mail to tech support. The next day I received an e-mail from Bruce who asked if I wanted to recover the data on the drive (versus, I suppose, did I want to simply recertify it . . .) I answered "recover the data" and the next day I received an answer, which I will post in Part 3.

[thatdellguy]

I have owned Salvations Seagate doctor for a year now. It has paid for itself many times over. Once you learn the controls its fairly simple to use.

[jono-ats]

Thanks Laura & others.

I've got to endure a bit of surgery today so I am going to be out of pocket for a few . . . I'll try the recommendations and report back ASAP.

Jon

[jono-ats]

I have owned Salvations Seagate doctor for a year now. It has paid for itself many times over. Once you learn the controls its fairly simple to use.

Do you use the device for data recovery or for "fixing" bad drives?

If you do data recovery, what kinds of specific firmware problems have you had success with?

[jono-ats]

Well, I'm back from surgery and have been able to work on this project again.

Laura kindly provided a "clarification" of the terse instruction that Bruce sent to me. I have tried to reply to Laura before I did to this group, but her server is not accepting my e-mails at the moment.

After I initially installed the software, I had .DLL conflicts on start-up.
I figured out what to do with the firmware CD in the meantime.

While working with the device, I find that it is astonishingly easy to
freeze and crash the entire system . . . .

I saved the firmware from the donor drive. I then tried to upload the app code from the good drive to the bad one. Other than noting the flashing lights on the device, there is nothing on the PC screen that shows that there is work in progress, until the step is done and it says "OK."

I then tried to "Fix Firmware" after I uploaded the app code. Neither Bruce or Laura mentioned this step, but the manual did.

I then repowered the device as instructed and there was no improvement. I connected the "repaired" drive to the PC3000 and got the exact same message -- can't read app code. OK Laura or Bruce, what should I do next?

Other impressions thus far:

1. The 4 pin inline header that connects to the serial port of the Seagate drive is fragile and flimsy -- the plastic piece that surrounds the pins separates from the row of pins invariably becomes lodged in the drive -- you have to dig it out with tweezers to use it again, only to have it get stuck in the next drive. Attached is my solution (Ace has a similar adapter with the same tendency)

2. Apparently, the default location for saving the firmware is inside of the Program (application) folder. However, when I went to retrieve the file for uploading, the default location is the "My Documents" folder.

3. It's all in the details, folks. There are a lot of little things that need fixing to make it professional quality.

I await further instructions on this recovery project with earnest.

Jon

Attachments

Connector fix

[hddbug]

Hi Jon
Nice improvement for the serial adapter,this will help all members.It will improve salvationdata products as well.
Hddbug

[thatdellguy]

I use it to fix a drive for data recovery.

[jono-ats]

Hi Jon
Nice improvement for the serial adapter,this will help all members.It will improve salvationdata products as well.
Hddbug

Thanks, HDD bug. I wanted to point out -- it's hard to see -- a big drop of epoxy where the wires go into the board, to keep them from breaking. This step makes them last much longer.

Jon

[koala]

you have done a good job

it's really very objective. thanks for sharing of your experience.

[salvationlaura]

Dear Jon,

I will solve the problem for you and send you an email. We are a little busy with the new website and I promise, we will provide our solution as soon as we can.

Regards

Laura

[jono-ats]

Thanks, Laura. I shall look forward to receiving it.

Jon

[Jinx]

Thanks Jono!!!

While working with the device, I find that it is astonishingly easy to
freeze and crash the entire system . . . .

Could you expand on this part a tiny bit? I've heard multiple people mentioning this, but I am not sure if it happens when accessing certain menus or if it just does it at random points...



Generally, after reading all the horrors of this thread I truly wonder what kind of a person would plug a client's drive into that "device"... I have a lot of hope in the new compass but if it's HALF as flaky as the HDD doctor reviewed in this thread then I will be very disappointed and salvation data will have another very sub par (although I am sure it will be cheap) product.

[jono-ats]

The program has crashed when trying to do certain functions within menus, as well as when I attempted to disconnect and reconnect the power supply cable to the magic box. The latter is understandable. I'll have to do a better job of logging the particulars as I work with it. Sorry I can't be more specific at this time.