Seagate ST31000340NS ES.2 seen by BIOS as ST31000340AS?

[MadOCer]

Hi to all the hard drive gurus around here,

I know that you are busy and all the newcomers' questions tend to get on your nerves from time to time. Yet, I hope that some poeple will find the time to read this thread and perhaps even be able to help me solve this problem (if possible at all). I'd highly appreciate any input on the matter.

Now the details:

I recently got a ST31000340NS drive (1TB Seagate ES.2 drive), which was said to be defective, not found by BIOS.

When I first connected it, I was a bit puzzled to say the least!
The drive is recongnized by BIOS on first powerup, showing 0MB capacity, but not as ST31000340NS!!! it is shown as being a ST31000340AS.

I then connected the PCB only to terminal to see if someone changed the PCB to that of a real ST31000340AS.
Using CTRL+L and CTRL+A I found the S/N to match the one printed on the HDD case, so the PCB should really be the one that actually left the Seagate factory with the HDD body. Furthermore, the info shows the drive to have firmware SD35 flashed, which sure enough is a 7200.11 ST31000340AS firmware and not one for the ST31000340NS ES.2, which namely are SN0x (x being 1 through 6), AFAIK.

So to me as a layman in this field, it looks very much like someone accidentaly( Don't ask me how!) flashed a SD35 firmware, meant for a 7200.11 Barracuda, onto his Barracuda ES.2. Perhaps because of the naming, which is nearly identical on both drives, except for the difference in the AS(7200.11) vs. NS(ES.2) at the end.


Now the big question is:
Is there a way to correct that firmware problem? I mean for me, without sending the drive in for ressurection, for lots of money. I do have a compatible SPI flasher here, whiich is known to work with the used SPI flash rom. But I don't know (and even highly douubt) if that's any good without further info.

The data on the drive is not of any importance at all! What counts would be to get the drive back to use. The data on the drive is not mine and I don't care about it and obviously the previous owner didn't care about it much, too, or he wouldn't have sold the drive. Would just be nice to get the drive to work again.

I highly appreciate any comments. And if the gurus agree that this drive is actually lost, then I'll accept that. I would just like to know if there could be a way. It's just a waste of a good drive ATM, to me.

Thank you very much in advance and greetings from Bavaria!

Ingmar

[Hugh]

I wonder if that firmware might actually work.

There is a common problem with 7200.11 drives that they sometimes show up as having 0 blocks. One fix is to use SeaTools for DOS (you can download the image of a bootable CD from Seagate). It has an option to set the disk capacity. Do that -- set it to the maximum. This might make your drive work.

As far as flashing the correct firmware, that may well be possible. I don't know anything about that but others do. That is probably the best thing to do.

[MadOCer]

Hi Hugh,

and thank you very much for your answer.

I am aware of the known firmware problem concerning the 7200.11 and ES.2 series. I mean I sure don't know as much about it as many people around here, but I knew that there is a FW bug.

The real problem is that this drive besides the wrong firmware seems to be in BUSY state, too. It is only detected (as ST31000340AS) on first bootup, or after a powercycle. After that (for example after a reset or when some program tries to detect the drive, after the first powerup), the activity LED is and stays constantly lit and the computer hangs forever.
On first powerup the drive tries to spin up, moves the heads around randomly (probably due to the wrong firmware version ) and then spins down after some seconds. The head movement is accompanied by some clicking (sign of mechanical damage, or rather a problem due to the wrong firmware ), although no grinding noise or something similar is audible.

And the common fix for the busy problem doesn't work, as I can't fully spin up the drive. After spindown via the "/2" -> "Z", followed by "U" the drive gives me "ERROR: 1008 DETSEC...", which AFAIK probably simply means that the drive is not able to spin up. And most of the time, when the PCB is connected to the drive, I get either the LED000000CC or the LED000000CE error. When I short the read-channels, I can get around that for a while.

My guess was that the drive could possibly be OK electrically and mechanically, but the wrong firmware rendered it unuseable. And with that wrong firmware, it seems I can't get much more out of the terminal, than some info on the hdd. But I don't seem to be able to do much more about the problem. At least not with my current knowledge about the drive and it's diagnostics.

That's why I came here to ask for help. As I said, if it is impossible, then it is. I just thought that some poeple around here may actually be able to know a way around that problem. But maybe I'm just misjudging the situation due to the lack of better knowledge. How should I know. I am a layman, as I already said.

Anyway thanks for any further comments! Positive or negative.

Greets

Ingmar

[poehere]

RMA this drive or take it to a shop that might help you on this one. A DR shop. But if it was flashed with the wrong FW version this might not be possible to repair this drive and it is time to get a new drive or maybe send it to Seagate and see what they will tell you on this one.

[MadOCer]

RMA this drive or take it to a shop that might help you on this one. A DR shop. But if it was flashed with the wrong FW version this might not be possible to repair this drive and it is time to get a new drive or maybe send it to Seagate and see what they will tell you on this one.

Thanks for your opinion!

This unfortunately is a OEM drive. Seagate won't do nothing on this one. And there also is no shop to take it to either. But I only payed a few EUROs for this one, hoping to possibly get it to work on my own, tinkering with it. As I said, the data on the drive is of absolutely no value to me. ZERO.

So if it is absolutely impossible to reflash the right firmware version, the drive will simply be binned. Or kept to learn a bit with it, as far as that's possible.

BTW, isn't there a way to extract the FW file from the downloadable update from Seagate and flashing it, using terminal commands? I'm just guessing here. I believe to remember that there is a flash command in the command list of this drive series. As I said I also could flash the SPI ROM directly. The problem is just: What data to use and what adresses exactly to write? I doubt that the whole flashrom gets written during a FW upgrade, or am I wrong and the additional data is really stored on the platters and the ROM "only" contains a single FW block? Or even much more complex?

As always, any extra input is highly appreciated.

[MadOCer]

This really seems to be a tough nut to crack. The combination of wrong firmware and BSY problem is, let's call it "special".
Upon trying to reset the firmware, or issueing the reset command on Level 1, command "e", I always receive "Bogus ISR" (after a successful spindown message), which probably means something along the lines of "wrong or unkown Interrupt Subroutiine", which again seems to confirm why the drive can't spinup and why it makes clicking noises on spinup. Really seems to be due to the wrong firmware. I.e. non-matching adresses for the needed programm segments.

In the meantime, I had a look at the flash software from Seagate and it looks like flashing a ST31000340AS (which this one isn't but does identify itself as, though) with the ST31000340NS firmware, shouldn't be too big of a problem.

BUT, the drive would have to be a) not in BSY state and b) able to spin up correctly. Unfortunately both of these conditions are not given, so this seems really bad.

Anyone got any ideas whatsoever?

BTW, do you think an extra PCB with rigt FW version (SN05) could help in any way? I know it won't work without additional modifications, but could it possibly help partially at least?

[Hugh]

If your BIOS sees the drive at all, you don't have the conventional BSY problem.

[MadOCer]

If your BIOS sees the drive at all, you don't have the conventional BSY problem.

Ehhm, sorry to say but, a) not all drives which are trapped in BSY state vanish from BIOS detection rght away. These drives freeze the system by sending a BSY message over the BUS all the time. Hence the name BSY bug. And b) of course this is not a normal case, as my drive is detected as something it is not, due to the wrong firmware that has been flashed.

[MadOCer]

If your BIOS sees the drive at all, you don't have the conventional BSY problem.

Ehhm, sorry to say but, a) not all drives which are trapped in BSY state vanish from BIOS detection rght away. These drives freeze the system by sending a BSY message over the BUS all the time. Hence the name BSY bug. And b) of course this is not a normal case, as my drive is detected as something it is not, due to the wrong firmware that has been flashed.

I just realized that this answer sounds a bit harsh. That was not intended. It's just that your posting, Hugh, wasn't really of any help, unfortunately. So, no offence!

[fzabkar]

RMA this drive or take it to a shop that might help you on this one. A DR shop. But if it was flashed with the wrong FW version this might not be possible to repair this drive and it is time to get a new drive or maybe send it to Seagate and see what they will tell you on this one.

AFAIK, SD35 firmware was not publicly released to the field. I suspect that ES.2 drives are just 7200.11 hardware with tweaked 7200.11 firmware. Does this sound plausible?

[MadOCer]

RMA this drive or take it to a shop that might help you on this one. A DR shop. But if it was flashed with the wrong FW version this might not be possible to repair this drive and it is time to get a new drive or maybe send it to Seagate and see what they will tell you on this one.

AFAIK, SD35 firmware was not publicly released to the field. I suspect that ES.2 drives are just 7200.11 hardware with tweaked 7200.11 firmware. Does this sound plausible?

It would if it wasn't also explicitly detected as 7200.11 (ST31000340AS). So this SD35 firmware wasn't ever meant to be flashed to a ES.2 drive, if that's what you meant. I have the suspicion that someone tried to flash his 7200.11 1TB drive under Windows and also had the 1TB ES.2 drive connected. Perhaps the flashing software had no model check and the person just selected the wrong drive. BAM, "dead" (at least ATM) ES.2 drive, due to wrong firmware.
Anyway, I'll just keep the drive and maybe one day I'll find a way to get it back from the dead. Will do further research on this, everytime I have some free time. Quite interesting subject anyway.

[fzabkar]

The following thread discusses a similar problem:
seagate-st31000324ns-wrong-and-t14574.html

[MadOCer]

The following thread discusses a similar problem:
seagate-st31000324ns-wrong-and-t14574.html

Very interesting. Thank you!

[MadOCer]

Any new ideas, maybe?

BTW, the HDD in the thread linked above could theoretically be the very drive that I have here now. Mine is SN04, too and I bought it from someone with an eastern european name. I know, quite a wild theory, but it could be possible. Doesn't change the situation, just something I noticed.

[MadOCer]

Well, well, well. It's been some time now. Had absolutely no spare time to tinker with the drive.

Anyone got an idea how to reflash the drive? There needs to be a way to get the drive in some sort of safe mode to still be able to flash it. Any hints?

[BlackST]

If you think that a HDD especially 7200.11 and above are like cell phones....

[guru]

check the serial number on Seagate's website to see what it was when it left the factory. There are plenty of fakes floating about at the moment

Sometimes you can spot them

[MadOCer]

@guru: Thank you very much for the advice. Could very well be that this one is a fake. I will check that. Would be a good explanation anyway.


@BlackST:
Don't you ever grow tired of posting such crap?
The way you are acting, you must think that you'll never ever have to ask someone for a little help, regardless of the matter. Think about it for one second, if you still are able to.

[fzabkar]

[quote="MadOCer"@BlackST:
Don't you ever grow tired of posting such crap?
The way you are acting, you must think that you'll never ever have to ask someone for a little help, regardless of the matter. Think about it for one second, if you still are able to. ;)[/quote]
Search the archives for his posts.

Let me know if you find one instance where he's actually helped someone.

In fact I can find two instances where he's actually asked the moderator to delete helpful posts ... not his own, of course.

[BlackST]

If you mean HELP = give away info for free , sorry NO.

On my IM many of the pros here are on my contacts and always welcome 24/7 when I'm online. Strangely, it's the same when I have something to ask, and it's not silly questions, it's a matter of JOB TO DO. For everything else, newbies can always help other newbies. If they can. Everything else is not my problem.