Maxtor 4G120J6 gone Romulan

[ToonPal]

Greetings, novices and experts at HDDGURU. I now join the ranks of the thousands, if not millions, of computer users who suffer from some kind of ailing hard disk drive with some small bits of unbacked up data being held hostage by a slight but serious drive component failure. I have a faint hope that I may be able to bring my drive back to life so that I may recover some of its data. Here I announce my adventure into the world of hard disk data recovery already in progress.

My ailing hard drive:
Maxtor 4G120J6 120GB
HDA 06A
PCBA 05A
Unique 11A
Code GAK819K0
Mfg. Date: 13JUL2002
MAXTOR D540X-4G 5400 RPM
4G120J6060511
N,M,B,B

Logic board:
A5FGB 19062LFJHT ER
83336322 A
301424100
POKER A-1/BUF/LITE/ATA-6

Processor:
Poker C.3
040107100
4370E9
0222S
13747250

All of a sudden out of the blue on September 27th, I turned on my computer and saw the BIOS error message: "Secondary hard drive fails". This confused me as I saw that the drive had been detected in the detected drive list in my Award BIOS boot screen. But then I saw something amiss: "Maxtor ROMULUS". That was not right at all!

I'm no low-level hardware engineer or software programmer, but I love computers and have been playing with them for almost 20 years, and I've made a modest living solving software problems and high-level hardware problems. I've learned a bunch of new stuff related to how hard drives work in my research and experimentation so far. HDDGURU has been an incredible resource, and I have played with some of the software available for download. I've been pretty surprised how much I am actually still able manipulate my drive, even though I can't touch the contents of its platters (not YET, hopefully).

I've learned so far that my drive's issue is most likely a failure to access the hidden "system area" sectors of the drive for proper startup, prompting it to show the drive's factory code name rather than its model number. Using software including HDD repair 2.0 and MHDD, I'm seeing the firmware being incorrectly reported as GAK819KZ (should be GAK819K0). I'm pretty sure from what I've learned so far that this is nothing that can be fixed with a stiction beating or by putting the drive in the freezer overnight. It's also highly unlikely that replacing the printed circuit board with an exact-exact match from a working drive would help, either.

I've read that it's possible to get drives such as this one to recover from a system area problem by getting the drive to download a firmware image file, or a "loader" which I don't quite understand the meaning of, created from an identical working drive into its RAM, execute it, and then use its restored functions to rewrite the firmware into the drive's system area (assuming its system area sectors are still reliable). If successful, cycling power on the drive makes it fully visible to the operating system again.

I don't have a spare drive identical to this one, and I've read that these drives need to be EXTREMELY identical since one factory run of these drives can differ significantly from the next, even if the model and firmware code are the same. I have a couple other drives with the same brand, capacity, and spindle speed, but not the same model number. I've found a ZIP archive in the HDDGURU file area that seems to contain firmware and other data copied from a drive very similar to my broken one, but I haven't found a way to make use of it. This could be fortunate since I might end up doing more damage instead of fixing anything.

I think I'll stop at this point and conclude this post with a couple questions. Is that package I found of any use? Is there a utility I've missed in HDDGURU's software collection that could let me see if I can at least break my drive with these files? Am I even following the right line of thought for bringing this drive back to life?

[Zero Alpha]

To get you the best answer you want... Do you need your data back?

Yes: Take it to a professional who can get your data for you.
No: Place this hard drive in the bin.

[ToonPal]

I really was asking for a patronizing, wasn't I?

I have actually been maintaining a backup of this drive. It was still a little shocking seeing it just suddenly quit on me like that. In all the years I've owned IBM-clone computers, I have never had a single drive go out on me like that. You can call me lucky, I suppose.

I guess I'm really looking at this as an opportunity to have a little fun. The thing is that the drive seems to function everywhere except in one little spot that is putting up a major roadblock to its continuing function. Of course, then again, the actual diagnosis could be something completely different that I will never have any way of knowing without ten bajillion dollars worth of equipment and training to use in my diagnostic procedure.

So just for grins and giggles, if it was a system area loader issue, would I absolutely need to have specialized equipment just to ruin that system area further? Just tossing it in the bin is so boring! And how are those system area loader images in the file area created in the first place?

[BlackST]

At factory everything is possible, in our labs almost everything. It is not possible to give away publicly all the info you want to know. At least not for me. Would have been different if you were a pro needing a little help or clue with standard LEGIT tools assuming you know how the Romulus drive work.

[ToonPal]

Darned trade secret obligations!

I'd better go looking for an HDDAMATEURS.com, where the success rate is meager and the disk damage rate high, but nobody works for a company to which they have signed an agreement to not divulge information that would threaten the industry and everybody struggles to fix their drives with little more than hammers and chisels.