Hi all,

I appreciate any advice I get here. I was creating a Linux software RAID with two 6E040L0 drives. Unfortunately I'd forgotten that there are different levels of IDE cables (40 pin vs. 80 pin I guess) and I used the wrong kind of cable to connect the original drive with the data on it for length reasons. I started to see errors and figured it was the cable, so I shut down shortly thereafter. After a couple of reboots, the Promise card stopped detecting the drive altogether. SeaTools has started calling it an N40P. I imagine what has happened is either there were so many errors when it was connected via the wrong IDE cable that it caused an overflow of the G-list I think it's called, or write errors wrote over something important that the drive needs to function (though I can't imagine the OS could write to the service area).

First, I have to imagine this is something that is relatively easy to fix for the right concern. Can anyone recommend anyone on the east coast/NJ area? Or maybe someone themselves here knows how to fix this? My latest backup was sadly a year old and in that time I created an entire large financial software data file. It could be reconstructed but could take many many hours, so it's probably worth a couple/few hundred to me.

The specifics of the drive are:

Date: 11FEB2004
S/N: E1Q24ZSE
6E040L0710653

It was working fine before I did this boneheaded thing, and it's not making any physical damage sounds. Much appreciated all!

These drives aren't the most robust, and they simply wear out.

The N40 is a generic error; it means that the drive is unable to "passport." Typical causes are firmware corruption, media degradation, and dirty heads.

Recovery requires a combination of special equipment, knowledge of how this family works, and experience (including best practices). For example, you need to be sure that you can successfully write to the drive before you attempt to fix any firmware issues.

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The sad part is if I'd left this drive alone, it probably would have been fine and I was in the process of mirroring it to make it more robust.

I am betting the drive is fine. I went through a full four pass write/read back test about a year ago with the drive and have not seen any data errors at all in the interim until I hooked up this wrong cable.. A lot can happen in a year, but, my suspicion is firmware corruption.

The drive is NOT fine because it IDs as N40P. If so, there is no way to diagnose and / or work with FW without dedicated tools.

P.S. these drives suffered from a lot of problems , so the N40P ID is maybe a consequence of other internal failure, not necessarily FW. The timing when it happened is just coincidence, to me.

Have it diagnosed professionally first, and even if there is an internal major problem (to me chances are 30-40% due to the specific drive , age and circumstances) it should not be an expensive job.

P.S. "expensive" referred to my standards, everything is relative.