nope. I don't know what to short on my PCB to enter directly into the terminal mode without exec any kernel loader. now I believe that the wrong flash inside, crash at a moment and from there, there's no way to get into the terminal. so a flag must be set to force the bootstrap start the terminal without checking for any flash.

Yes, i guess you are correct.
When the external programmer arrive or the JTag device, and you are able to re-program ROM, first DUMP the ROM inside the damaged PCB to check what when wrong, and only then flash it again.

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Louis,

It seems to me the problem came because you used drive with not original pcb. MOD 47 contain adaptives and if we suppose they are not same for both drive because every drive have its unique adaptives, it's very likely that the adaptives for heads 0 are very close and for heads 1 are not. That is the reason for not able to read H1. If you have "playing arround" with saving the modules on H1, maybe they have been saved on platter but because of wrong adaptives some modules (and tracks) may be destroyed without chance to rewrite them even with original pcb (adaptives). The problem with the H1 modules can be present even if you didn't saved the modules because you said that donor came unformatted and you did a format, while formating the drive maybe have made changes in G-list and saved that modul, also saved SMART module and some others so those and other modules and tracks also can be destroyed.
The bad idea is to writte on SA with wrong adaptives. BTW, the drive in safe mode itself doesn't save anything on SA but in standard mode it does.

As for corrupted MOD 47 there are cases when ROM gets corrupted beacuse of the pcb malfunction. I think that MOD 47 content regularly can be modified by drive ONLY after SS. There is no other logical reason to be modified while the drive is in regular use.

That possible malfunction of the pcb also can be explanation for the bricking the pcb while saving the rom content.

This topic has many posts and datas so it's possible that I have missed some of the important facts in them so my opinion can be wrong.

hi Nebojsa_28. when I said "format"...I was talking about windows format....ntfs format

the mod 47 it's inside the ROM firmware. it contains the adptives for Zone 0 aka SA. let's say that the old pcb didn't matched the adaptives for H1 in SA. but why with its own pcb can't still read the H1 on SA? If some adaptives mods on SA are screwed...at least with its internal mod47 all heads should be able to read SA.

can somebody tel what "format" does in fact? not the windows one..which makes the drive visible to OS.

also, how the firmware knows where to find the SA on the platters? I know about the Servo system...some marks written on the platters in factory...but does the firmware use an explicit servo cylinder where the SA should be?

Now i'm confused.
If you plug thd pcb ONLY you should be able to flash ROM. if not, problem is with Pcb/ROM and not SA, as pcb doesn't report redyness due to the fact that it was damaged during ROM re-flash.
The other "format" with P-List erases the entire surface data and put defects on P-list.
I'm assuming that using the "old" pcb you can access donor SA using 3.0, so problem is with ROM and not SA.
There might be an aditional step needed when depoping, and that is to modify on ROM the LBA, as in 6.0 tuturial videos on ROYL. In any case if PCB doesn't report redyness even without drive then problem is due to bad flash of ROM.

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about your confusion...the PCB won't even spin the motor. when I plug the power it's totally silent the ATA regs when I access the controller , doesn't respond to any command..which means that there's no firmware code loaded to fill the regs (to respond).

I believe the LBA it's on the mod 02 -> SA, so what to modify in rom? the rom holds only basic info to access the SA...which holds the rest. SO if you can't access the SA...the rom it's bad..OR the read channel it's bad...bad preamp (all 4 head dead..or H1+H2 =SA-heads). If one head gives error on SA..then the MOD 47 in rom could be bad for that Head..or the head it's dead. But it's possible that the other adaptives mods on SA hold again the adaptive infos for the dead head...so the reading of SA with the good head should fix the bad info in 47 for H1..and the head should work (assuming good adaptives for H1 in SA found), which leads me to a dead H1.

now, how about building your own HSA alignment tool?


ebay 20$ micrometer
I guess the rest could be made "at home".

they sell it as it's gold made. mfrz

Lets see if i understand :

1 - PCB is ddamaged because you flashed incorrect/damaged ROM that you were not suposed to flash there.

2 - Head is dead because it was already dead (and you tried to depop it) right ?

3 - Regarding ROM modification when depoping, if you depop head 0 you have to change settings on ROM for SA to be read from other head ? Also Head 1 contains modules/firmware that are not present on head 0 ?

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Wjat do you intnd to do with that tool ?

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- Yes, I know you did a format for user area.

1. Maybe because the mods/tracks are damaged because of bad saving with wrong adaptives, I also don't are the firmwares same version
2. Not if the SA or part of it is damaged
3. I don't know on what "format" you refer
4. Good start for this is in the article http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html
5. Mod 47 is important for successfull reading of the SA, not vice versa
6. In one of your tests H1 is good

1. pcb it's damaged. in what circumstances..I don't know. I'll dump the rom to see what was inside...when the programmer arrives.

2. the H1 doesn't respond to read function..with both PCB's. it throws the errors I've already mentioned. I found this after I formatted the hdd for ntfs. also posted the hdtune pattern. after that, knowing that the HSA won't help me for my patient..I started few researches on it...in order to discover how 3.0 works, how depop works etc.

3.from what I understand.. on older roms like mine (perhaps the newer too) ..the H1 it's the mirror of H0 in SA. unfortunately when I found that..my H1 was already bad..so I couldn't verify what H1 returns on reads in SA. when I use the vsc function which reads a mod...it doesn't let me specify which head to read..so it handles internally what reads and from which head. there it's another function..more generic..with which I can read the SA and there I specify the head, track, sector...so I could read a mod from H0 or H1. but I could not test this since I don't have a good for testing hdd I think that if you depop H0, H1 will become H0...in that head map in mod 0xa in firmware. so the firmware will read H0 from that map...which now will have the copy of SA. it should work...but don't know how it will act since a H2 which now will be H1..won't have a copy of SA....however..my donor worked fine with the H1 dead...so no copy of SA.

4.build one for a small fraction of 500$

1 - Let's wait for the external programmer and see what briked the drive then. Sounds a good idea

2 - OK, that is correct.

3 - Correct.

4 - I don't understand how that tool works.

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I have submited answers for Louis's post but it's not published because of:

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zmist was a virii opening new horizons at its time. when naiming it the russian author was inspired by a book called "With Morning Comes Mistfall".

as example I could say..

with head swap comes misalignment

with that tool you play with the HSA spindle's ox-y-z price: 500$ (but when you charge 1500 for a dr..it's nothing; the price doesn't reflect it's components value..but the money the users makes with it. and when you make easy money..at a large scale..bubble appears. dot com ...real estate...etc. btw dja and sp500 are on top of the bubble so soon we will have another global crash and more recession to come, but this time it will strike even harder)

@Nebojsa_28 maybe you have passed a link or something which was interpreted as spam.

Very cool !

Are you planning a DIY head stack replacement on the other WD drive ?

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it's not a plan..it's a possibility I'm thinking

but what I'm talking about...at this moment I don't even have a valid donor. I'm tracing ebay for it.

by the way

How Many Sectors are on Your Hard Drive?


this should match also the LBA.

by the way...GB means giga multiple of 1000...not 1024 as it is supposed to be in bit's world. why? dont know.
ie: 200GB means 200 000 000 000...divide by 512bytes (a sector)...means 351,562,500 sectors/ lba?

so if I cut 1 head..the final max LBA should be set to 3/4 of 200GB = 150GB = 292,968,750 sectors?

On a drive with four heads if you depop one you will have 1/4 of the totality of the LBA for that drive.

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Just on thing, are you sure you didn't flash back the ROM with PUIS enabled to ignore jumper on the drive you say it's "bricked" ?
Can you send the PUIS command to the drive to see it will do any good ?
Just thinking that you might have flashed a copy of the ROM from the time you were playing with PUIS ....

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Off Topic - When you aquired the donor drive on ebay did you bother to check the seller feedback ?
Because i've just checked it up and the seller have a *huge* negative reputation of selling broken stuff (including laptops, components, etc ...) and even incorrect stuff (like a guy that ordered printer ink cartdriges and recieved a pack of bateries, etc ...) . The guy sells junk that other people trow away and recicle it on the market, or so it apears ..... The feedback that the users left for him talk for itself ....
Next time you aquire something on ebay you better check the feedback of the seller first .... Not only that, the particular seller have issues wher refunding people for damaged junk that he sell ....

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Regarding ROM :

Assuming that you falshed a working ROM using 3.0 i can't see a reason why the PCB is briked now, unless you flashed a file that was not a ROM something else ...
Because even flashing a wrong ROM (not the one expected for that PCB) it should still spin up the drive and accept VSC. This would be the same thing as to using the old PCB without swaping the ROM chip.
Unless you flashed something bogus or something not compatible with the MCU at all, like a Seagate ROM or an old WD Caviar ROM ....
I'm waiting for that external programmer too, to figure out what went wrong with the flashing

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checked all that things. usually ..in puis mode the drive respond to commands with errors. now it doesn't change a register. entirely bricked


yes. 44 negatives at 9000 items it's not so bad. the model it'd very rare. I had to risk.


the programmer has arrived to country. usually due to the bad system it will take one week to get it. as I said, I believe I flashed the patient's rom. maybe some errors during flashing operations not detected by the 3.0. I don't have any other roms at hand..but donor's and patient's...in those dir's where I dumped, because from there I selected.

one good option to my app it will be to automatically checking the flash after writing!! which means to download the newly flashed rom and compare to what we've written. don't know if it's possible because after flash write it could enter in reset mode automatically....but it's an option to investigate. this way if the images write/read after..doesn't match..and the kernel didn't already rebooted...you will have the chance to flash again until correct result.