I made a big long post on here and Im not sure if Im posting in the wrong place or just need to be approved by a mod. Ill make this one short(er). I am a tech support guy - but have little understanding of firmware on hard drives. I have read for the last day but still have some questions. I have a maxtor Diamondmax 40gb drive that is a vital part of a video game called "Bowl-O-Rama" - in order to just buy a new hard drive from Namco they want to sell me a very expensive package with: MoBo,HD, and I/O controller -The issue is that the maxtor has gone into the well documented N40P issue - I see it in the bios as Maxtor N40P and I am unable to format it with any number of boot cds. I understand this to be a firmware issue. Most of the posts on this subject are many years old. Has there been any progress in fixing this situation that I might be able to do this myself? I see Seagate is now offering a lot of firmware downloads but I cannot seem to find the specific one to my drive.

I imaged another drive from a different video game cabinet and while it does in fact book up to the game after a few moments the I/O controller doesn't like it and gives me an I/O controller having difficulty conversing with the hard drive error.

Please any advice. I can post HD specifics if that will help. Thank you for your time. - Chris

That model usually does not have firmware problem.
Recovery of this model might be very inexpensive.

For future references, when you get a working drive, make sure you make several images. This will allow you to replace a drive when it fails and have your game machine/s running in no time.

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Thank you for taking the time to respond. The hard drive spins without clicking and sounds normal... this lead me to read up on the firmware. I have the screwdrive to take it apart but I haven't yet. Is there anything I could try to fix it physically? Like maybe cleaning the heads? The image that I have is from someone in the midwest who was kind enough to upload an image of their drive... I was hoping to get this maxtor going so I could load his image back onto it if the other was corrupt... I was told by Namco tech support that I could use his image on the original hard drive and it would work - but that it wont work on any other hard drive... So im guessing there is some serial number written in the program. Im not sure. If it is typically not the firmware is there any parts of the hardware I could open up and look at? Thanks again for your time - CHRIS

You can not flash this like a cell phone. Firmware is part of the Serivce Area or what some call negative tracks on the media surface. Without the right tool it is not possible for you to read this area, work in this area, or even fix the issues in this area realted to your problem on this HDD.

You will never be able to format this HDD because it reports in your BIOS as factory alais. Which means it needs some help from a "Pro" ouch for most is a bad word. But in this case it is only way to get around this one.

You are Bay Area in California. You can send this down the cost just a small way and have thatdellguy fix this one for you. He has the tools, knowledge, and can do this for a very reasonable price. Other wise you will need to invest in some tools which are costly, then learn the know how which takes a lot of time, and maybe in the end after you spend more than you would to have someone with knowledge do this for you there might be some data.

That is your choices on this one. FW is not flashable and will not fix this problem of your. it is internal and not related to the PCB or flashable anything.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Thank you guys. This forum rocks. thank you for your time. I would really like to contact thatdellguy - i can bring the hard drive to him if it doesnt cost an arm and a leg. Ill see if I cant find out how to PM him. I figured I would not be able to do this myself... but its not in my nature not to try. Hopefully thatdellguy might let me watch him do it because I am very interested in learning such procedures... and can sit quietly Thanks again and hey, thatdellguy how do I contact you

*edit* also I wanted to note that the image I have on a 2nd hard drive came from a gentleman scholar in the midwest with the same game who imaged his drive for me. I dont know why the game wont accept his image but I think it must be serial number related... if anyone can think of a way to spoof the identity of the old hard drive onto the new one with said image? Is that ridiculous? Thanks again

Sadly I am not able to PM thatdellguy because my account is new. Hopefully he will see this and pm me or maybe someone can send me his contact info. much appreciated.

I sent it to him he is away and when back he will contact I think

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Iorana Haraharaini

Thank you - Upvotes to you good sir.

You may be able to use HDD Repair V2.0 to do this. BTW, it's freeware, so don't let anyone sell it to you.

You should also be able to modify a WD ROYL drive using HDDHackr. The WD drive will then look exactly like the Maxtor.

See this post:
http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/Ins ... d-p/393685

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

That is probably do-able, if all you need to do is change the s/n to match that of the one you cloned from.

Make sure you use the same model (and preferably FW version) and make a direct clone (I.e. sector clone, not ghost clone) of the good drive to your blank one. Then use hdd repair 2.0 to change the s/n of the newly cloned drive.

If this is the only thing that needs to be done, then this IS a candidate for DIY

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Actually poehere is a lady

Just a side note: If that game machine indeed uses a serial-lock for hdd's, then you're in trouble. You need to image drive (assuming that Maxtor has useful game data inside) and then trick new drive (should be same brand etc) to use a specific s/n. It's do-able, but it gets complicated.

Anyway, good luck!

EDIT: @Sean, drive is not detected in BIOS, it is shown with factory alias, so imaging is NOT the only thing that can be done!

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The first article suggests that a common problem is G-list (grown defect list) overflow.

Data recovery from a Maxtor DiamondMax8 with firmware corruption:
http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recove ... r-n40p.htm

Repairing Firmware problems on a Maxtor Hard Drive:
http://www.salvationdata.com/data-recov ... rive03.htm

http://www.dataclinic.it/data-recovery/ ... 8-N40P.pdf

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I love the "well documented N40P issue" thing.... there are at least 15 or so reasons for the drive to enter that state and each one is different.

Let me get some popcorn....

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to consider my issue. I am waiting to hear from thatdellguy and hopefully will meet up with him. Thanks again... and sorry for the double post... hopefully a mod can delete the 2nd one as I cant seem to figure out how.

Thanks again - C

I know the parient drive is not detected properly in BIOS, what I meant is that IF all he needs to do is clone from a working drive from another game unit, to another known working BLANK drive (with s/n change) then it is DIYable.

Of course the factory alias issue is 99% fixable (NOT by DIY) but the above solution is an easier option for the OP if it works that way!

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hi
first sorry for my poor english, i'm french
I will soon have a rockin' bowl-o-rama cabinet, the only things i knew are : lcd is out of order and there is no graphic card
i made some google searchs, and i can read your post, in case my hard drive is broken, did you have a image of this hard drive ?
thanks
fred

hi
my hdd was in trouble because of a bad update, with my brother we put the good update manually on the hdd and now it work quasi perfectly, I just have a control board error now
if someone need it, I can upload the image clone of my hdd
fred