I have PC3K, and it has worked well for these drives, but I was curious what other methods or tools might be employed to correct SA failures in 7200.11 drives.

Study the structure of firmwares, do your own research and you can do without. This for Seagate and mamy other. Unless you want a 'push and go' solution...

By terminal its possible

salvation Data HD Doctor, PC3K, Terminal via RS232 adaptor....

It's like McGyver... Or Wile E. Coyote

I was just curious because at this point I'm just a monkey pushing buttons. I would like to hone my skills beyond just pushing some buttons and regenerating translators. I want to understand more about the structure of the firmware itself, in not only Seagate drives but other drives as well. I think anyone can just shell out $15,000 or $20,000 on some equipment, but there is never any one solution that works in every case, so I'm hoping that I can spend some time digging a little deeper into all of this so that the foundation of my understanding is a little more solid. Does anyone have any ideas where the best place to start is? I mean besides just hooking up a drive and staring blankly at the raw terminal data?

The best place to start IMHO should be understand on deep the logical level "Byte to byte" Structures how works, boot sectors, FS, FAT, NTSF,HFS,Linux, im know there are a lot of soft wich did the job but on my experience that helps me to understand the physical problem , when u undertand on deep the logical level, then u need to understand electronics basic, SMD circuits, and funcions on microcontrollers, u should be has some sutdy on electronic, engineering etc, then u can read about ATA protocol,that u can find a lot of info on net that is u friend "T13.org" for example , tried to read and study microcontrollers, Hard Disks are little computers, with a Microprocessor, UC, RAM, I/O etc, after u understand that, using SA tools like ace products, u can understand more what its the track engineering, u can find a lot of usefull info on Russian, poland, hungary forums tried to find about that, if u want u can PM

Regards

Beto, all we know I mean the deep tech details we have researched on our own. I haven't found many deep tech info on the net. And of course there are trading secrets.

Hy blackst yes im know the full tech its by u own knowledgment & research u cant find on the net that , but when u are starting from nothing well on my experience im think study a career its need it some like "electronic engineering" that open my mind to this field to understand the basic from how "works an hdd" ,u can find some interesting links wich "open u mind" to the wonderfull world of "hard drives" of course that people will be patient u cant got all knowledment on one day, that are many years of study, understanding, and practice, thats not easy solutions, only helps u like a signal " where its the way " thats not its meaning u find a course about how to did a DR and how to be a proof DR company with many years of experience on the net, that´s , like u said cannot be learned only by experience, but its only a "llittle light on the longest way"

Regards