I have a Seagate ST35000320AS - 500GB Drive
Firmware: SD04


The drive gets detected in PC3K, shows the correct size, I can even view the folders and files.

But when I try to image used sectors map, after few thousand sectors in green, the drive gives a continuous mild whirr sound and all the sectors shows black in PC3K. I tried building heads map and it seems that all heads give the same black sectors, so I believe the problem is not due to a single head crash.

I tried DDI, the drive becomes not responding after few thousand sectors of successful imaging

Is it heads or firmware issue?

does it lose ready state? Do status register change at all? Did you check relocation options under HDD ID?

I would try head by head...

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Or backwards..

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It does not lose ready state, when all sectors goes to black, registers DWF, ERR, ABF is red, DRD, DSC remains green


Sorry I am not sure on checking relocation options under HDD ID, any tips on how do that?

Thanks for your help

Now I am trying just Head0 backwards, will update on the progress

H2 was the problem. All other heads able to image without issues.

As suggested imaging was done backwards with each head. Except Head 2 all other 3 heads ran successfully.

I believe need to replace the head to get 100% recovery ?