Strange Maxtor issue - knocking "if..."

[deftrue]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell what might be the problem with this drive? It's a SABRE2 Maxtor (6V160E0), SA modules are mostly OK (module FF was corrupted on Copy 1, but shouldn't matter and I repaired it, and there are 2 more corrupted modules which shouldn't impact on drive's performance or user data accesibility, and I've been able to recover about 95% of it (I've got all I need really), but $MFT is outside that 95%, and sure it's always best if you can map all files and folders correctly... and the thing is that the drive knocks if I try to read any LBA between 0 and ~8,000,000, and it sets BSY bit high but does not set UNC nor ERR or ABR bits. It also knocks exactly once when becoming ready (DSC + DRD) on power up. Data is accessible quite fast and good for any head (head map is 3, 4, 5) given any LBA > ~8,000,000.

Any ideas on what might happen to this drive? I have thought of zone adaptives corruption, but important SA modules report good headers and checksums...

Regards

[BlackST]

Mechanical issue or zapped servo or small radial scratch. Seen a lot on 6v , my stats.
If you rebuild the SA completely , loosing data of course, the drive is usable again unless one head is also becoming weak. Don't waste too much time on it, 6V were quite a fiasco...
P.s.what were the 2 more corrupted mods exactly ?

[deftrue]

Thank you BlackST. I'll open it and just check for any damage. Heads are going so fine through the rest of the disk that I doubt about scratches, but who knows, old drives are sometimes quite tough.

I will let you know, for community's interest - although you might be right already!

[BlackST]

Servo zapping has peculiar behaviour , don't open the drive if you want to reuse it assuming you have already got the data needed, it is a pity.

[deftrue]

Well in that case, I'll have to wait a few days before taking such actions. I will let you know anyway.

Thank you!

[deftrue]

Strangely, I managed to read some more LBA's around 6,000,000 using some magic from PC3k, but couldn't read for long. Damaged modules are 21 and 1E.

Regards

[BlackST]

1E IS important ! This explain many things. Anyway, I would not use Pc3000 in this case, better use DDI or so with some tweaking, to squeeze out some more data...

[deftrue]

Tomorrow I will double-check those modules. I don't really know why are they reporting as bad - copy 1 is missing or its respective track in H4 is not formatted, but copy 0 seems to be okay. PC-3000 says this error is "not critical for its normal operation". What kind of information does it contain?