My samsung HD103UJ 1TB was flashed with the Dell flasher and its now showing up as a 750GB model.. The PCB is fine, its just been flashed wrong.

I have been posting a thread and i kind user from this forum was helping me... But i thought if i posted a thread here more ppl could help.. ?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/269 ... j-firmware

What's worst : it is now seen as 750GB, but IS IT WORKING ? Can you READ , WRITE, FORMAT (ONLY if there is no data / not important data !!) it and has NO errors ?

If there is important data, DON'T play with it.

P.S. if there was data inside the disk, depending on how this "Dell Flasher" works and WHAT was sent, it's bad bad news...

it doesnt function as a disk...
it will only show up in the bios and sometimes in device manager, but thats about it...

the dell flasher appears to flash the device incorrectly..
the pcb is fine, the drive is fine.. just cant use it any more.

i thought about a PCB swap to see if it would work, just waiting for the replacement drive to come...

i have years and years of photos on that drive.. its a sad day because its totally wreckked...
some data recovery guy i spoke to said he could mess around with the service track to make it work again.. but thats £150+...

"MESS AROUND" is one thing, "KNOW HOW TO FIX IT" another, "FIX IT" still another one.

As I suspected, the drive ate "bad stuff"

In any case the PCB is NOT fine and the drive even worse depending what was sent (and... processed), otherwise some more "sign of life" should have been noticed.
It's a miracle it doesn't click furiously at startup and becomes ready / recognised by BIOS.

so what do you think a pro data recovery guy would do to get acccess to my drive?

It's his job (OR if I have the drive at hand, it's MY job)

Out of curiosity, this "Dell Flasher" sent data to the drive, it SPUN DOWN and then you had to turn off and on ?

the flash sent the rom data.. (i assume) yes and then power cycle the machine...

Bingo

Why can i not just replace the PCB with a like for like drive?

Because it won't work and NOW there is also something else to work with.

whats that then?

IF it was a full firmware update to a completely different version and not just a "bug fix" minor amendment to the existing version, then the flasher would have re-flashed the ROM and also made changes to the corresponding microcode on the platters.

So you cannot simply just change the PCB.

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My only concern is, will the DR guys hold me to ransome? i need my drive fixed so the data can be access... IF you did it for me? would you be able to provide a list of folders and files that are on the system..? or would you just get it working again and then trasfer the files to another HDD ? regards PD24

@PD24,

To access "folders" and see what's inside, the drive need to be fixed COMPLETELY. 1 byte or 1 TB is exactly the same. Just a matter of money (from you) and skill of the person who will handle your drive.
Data then can be copied somewhere else or if possible you'll get your original drive back.
Depending on what happened, you may also experience "some" data loss or partial corruption.
Need proper diagnose and check, otherwise it's just clairvoyance thru the internet, if not something else.