Love this forum, wish i had as much time as the people who are such good contributors.

I have a 2TB seagate from a clients security DVR, and of course there is a critical incident that may or may not be on the drive depending on when it stopped functioning.

It will not detect in BIOS.

It seems to spin up ok, I can hear some movement internally, nothing sounds out of place.

I have the serial io connected, and on boot up, without interrupting it, I get:

Boot 0x40M
Spin Up
Trans.

Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset


then it just hangs.

i can hit ctrl-z etc and get the prompt but from there everything is pretty greek to me, and i do not want to experiment with this drive.

any assistance in determining the nature of this and if there is a quick fix or not would be appreciated.

(knowing of course that "easy fix" is a very relative term....)

Here's the ^L data:


GrenadaBP LuxorPlus2 4K, GPF1 MC with new serpent DFW
Product FamilyId: 58, MemberId: 04
HDA SN: Z240Q1CZ, RPM: 7199, Wedges: 188, Heads: 5, OrigHeads: A, Lbas: 00001D27
3EAC, PreampType: CC 06
Bits/Symbol: C, Symbols/UserSector: BEB, Symbols/SystemSector: 1A5
PCBA SN: 00007333261X, Controller: LUXORLPLUS_2_0( 203)(FF-FF-FF-F, Channel: STX
_DUNRAVEN, PowerAsic: Unknown Rev 00, BufferBytes: 4000000
Package Version: GPG17C.CCD2.CB0487.CC26 , Package P/N: 100720588, Package Gl
obal ID: 00410638,
Package Build Date: 12/13/2012, Package Build Time: 13:56:37, Package CFW Versio
n: GPG1.CCD2.00515436.00410638,
Package SFW1 Version: C7EA, Package SFW2 Version: ----, Package SFW3 Version: --
--, Package SFW4 Version: ----
Controller FW Rev: 12131356, CustomerRel: CC26, Changelist: 00515436, ProdType:
GPG1.CCD2, Date: 12/13/2012, Time: 135637, UserId: 00410638
Servo FW Rev: D7EA
TCG IV Version: n/a
Package BPN: 18
RAP FW Implementation Key: 16, Format Rev: 0004, Contents Rev: 71 01 07 00
QNR Container: 1
Features:
- Quadradic Equation AFH enabled
- VBAR with adjustable zone boundaries enabled
- Volume Based Sparing enabled
- IOEDC enabled
- IOECC enabled
- DERP Read Retries enabled v. 4.7.01.0000000000000017
- LTTC-UDR2 disabled
- SuperParity disabled
- Humidity Sensor disabled
- Background Reli Activity Critical Event Logging disabled

Further to my problem, I notice that the

Boot 0x40M
Spin Up
Trans.

Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset

is the normal startup, however the SATA interface will not show this drive

also i can ctrl-z to prompt quickly before the (P) SATA reset, but once it gets there, it takes quite a while to go to prompt, i almost thought it was completely locked up, left it and looked back later and there was the prompt.

anyways not sure if the SATA interface (on hd board) is bad (is this even possible i dont knnow)? or ???? Have tried on multiple motherboards and external USB to SATA adapters

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated....if nobody has a suggestion I guess I have no choice but to send it somewhere, but it really feels like something easier (famous last words!).

The drive spins up and stays spinning, no clunking or other "bad" sounds

Search around the forum a bit. Your drive likely has a firmware issue, perhaps some bad sectors as well.
Problem is if there is a weak head.
Need a really solid diagnostic by a specialist in the data recovery field to determine what is what.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Thanks for the response, I have been searching, but not finding another example with the same drive and same problem. I am also reluctant to try anything unless I know exactly what I'm doing.

I was hoping someone could determine something from the logs or what have you.

Because this drive may contain critical information I am being cautious.

Also I have a "donor" drive, although I certainly won't be touching anything internal, although I don't believe its an internal (mechanical) issue. The donor is exactly the same model, firmware and only a few serial #s away.

I have SMT rework tools, chip readers etc etc but as I understand it, the flash is an 8 pin device, which would be pretty easy to remove and migrate to the other board, should it be a board problem.


When I try the good drive, I get the same startup, and when SATA is connected it shows (H) SATA Reset in the console output, which doesn't happen in the faulty one.

Without knowing enough about how it operates, I can't say where the fault lies. Is it trying to read from the SA (or elsewhere) and hanging up therefore never even trying to talk to the SATA port? Wouldn't that generate some error log? Is it not seeing the SATA interface and therefore just sitting there thinking its not connected? No further output comes after the (P) SATA reset, I would've thought it would generate some errors if it wasnt reading the disk properly etc

Because it is from a security DVR, the video recovery is a PITA. But, if the DVR is still working, a full clone of the drive should suffice to get it back up and running.

If the data is worth at least our minimum of $350 and you want to get it to my lab in Guelph, I'd be happy to assess and quote a price to get that clone. The less you try, the higher the chances that we will be able to recover it at a reasonable price.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Thanks for the response again!

The DVR is working fine and I have dozens of the same model anyways. And yes it is of course a somewhat proprietary storage format (embedded linux OS) but I expect i should be able to drop it back into a DVR and recover that way.

After more and more perusing, I think i fixed this thing!

I found the following info elsewhere:



Now this info was for the LP version but since that is also a recent version with similar part format (ie ST2000xxx) figured it was worth a look...

So out of an abundance of caution i tried it first on the known good drive, which after, still appeared to be healthy and recognized in bios, Partitions still showed up etc.

so i did it to the bad one and voila, it is once again recognized in Windows, now the $1,000,000 is do i just plunk it into a DVR or should I mirror it to the known good drive first...

And thanks for the offer, the client definitely would have paid the $350 to get it recovered, as there is some critical information (hopefully! depending when it failed...) related to some loss prevention issues

Well, you took a risk and won. Had you lost and made things worse, I trust that you would have paid for the much more expensive lab recovery out of your own pocket, right?

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Nice work!

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Normally we don't even care what's on a drive when it fails. usually we just RMA it and start fresh. This was a little unusual because of the client situation.

And believe me, i take your words seriously, had this not worked, and there was no credible advice from this forum, my next step would have been to send it somewhere.

The client was also well aware that recovery may not be possible and they were willing to take a risk, and at this point we don't even know exactly when it failed, so it may well be that the footage we are after doesn't even exist.

Also FYI to anyone with a similar issue i DID NOT use the card stock to stop the motor from running nor did I short any traces, my understanding is you only need to do that if you cannot get the F3 prompt. I probably would NOT have done that if required.

I also would have never attempted this on the target drive if I didn't have the donor to test on first. I had a gut feeling that this was not a major catastrophic failure. This was supported even further by seeing all the troubles seagate drives have had just from firmware issues and the percentage of those that were recoverable. Also noticing there have been 1 or more firmware updates for this drive since it was born made me optimistic.

So thanks for the words of caution, next time I play with this stuff it will hopefully be for fun, I have a strong background in reverse engineering, I'm sure it could get pretty interesting, but right now I just don't have the time for another obsession.

I have finally verified that the data is indeed intact.

If I got lucky than I am grateful. I will readily admit most of this is completely foreign to me and i'd love to jump in and get my hands dirty, but in all honesty its not very often i have to do anything like this.

As I feared all along the drive failed much before the incident, the last recordings are in January. This I almost expected, that is why I was willing to take some chance. If this was absolute mission critical data it would have been shipped off on day 1.

This is what happens when people ignore boxes making beeping sounds

Just remember, it isn't about it not working...but more about you killing the drive. Had you severely messed up the firmware on this drive, you would have made a project that was potentially $350 and made it unrecoverable or cost thousands of dollars. Sadly, in this case, to find out that the drive doesn't have the data you were looking for.

Out of curiosity, is the drive back in the live system again?

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

No on the day I pulled it I replaced it with a brand new 2TB otherwise the client would have no recording, I'm not sure i feel comfortable putting this back into service for real work, I may just put it in my own unit at home or use it on the bench. I did clone it to another brand new drive which I am putting online in a DVR for the client so he can do the playback and download whatever clips he needs. I already had it in a DVR and it does play the video.

I guess I could also get back into the console and do something to make the drive dead again so I can RMA it.

Hi lcoughey,

Your post is a bit hard to understand. I understand that you did not shorten anything nor isolated the head contacts from the PCB with a plastic strip. So after connecting to the hard drive via RS232, you saw the F3 prompt?

Terminal output on my ST2000DM001 with CC24 firmware is

C!¨ë0x40M
Spin Up
Trans.

Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset

Then it hangs. Can not get to F3 prompt with CTRL-z. Left it there patiently for 20 min, no prompt appears after waiting.

Hard disk is from a DELL workstation, less than a year old. HDD was always stationary, never moved, dropped etc.. One day during reboot of the machine BIOS hang and did not recognize the device. Last backup was 3 weeks old. Can not afford professional data recovery and have accepted the data loss already, but if it really just needs some reset to be detected once more by BIOS to have a look at it I would give it a try.

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks!

Hi oncam,

If I understand you correctly you simply connected to the HDD via RS232 without shortening anything or placing an isolating spacer between the PCB and the head contacts...
I am trying to diagnose a ST2000DM001 with firmware CC24 from a DELL workstation that was less than a year old when the HDD stopped working. PC was always stationary, never experiencing any accelerations, dropped, kicked, etc.. While rebooting the computer one day, BIOS suddenly hang and could not recognize the HDD anymore.

I can successfully connect to the serial interface and get the very same response on the terminal than you did:

C!¨ë0x40M
Spin Up
Trans.

Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset

Then it hangs. I can not enter the F3 prompt via CTRL-z. Waiting patiently for ~20min does not let the prompt appear either. How did you make it to the F3 prompt?

Would appreciate any comments or help. Last backup from the HDD was 3 weeks old, data loss is manageable (although it hurts). Have discarded the drive completely, but if there is some way to make it recognizable by BIOS once again to have a look at it and copy some files I would take the chance. Can't afford professional recovery, sorry. Trying a DIY fix - if this bricks the HDD I am okay totally fine with it. Partitions were ext4 (Linux).

Thanks!

I figured that the TTL interface voltage on the 7200.14 is 1.8V. I can now access the F3 prompt via CTRL-Z without any issue... now I hesitate to type random commands that I do not understand. What could be next in diagnosis?