ROM Rebuilding Needed

[kangarootaco]

Hi,

I've read that rebuilding ROMs on modern hard drives is extremely difficult, but that there may be a couple data recovery labs who do it, and possibly even some experts on this forum who do it as well. I'm willing to pay quite a bit of money for it. Can someone who knows let me know who to contact?

The hard drive that needs a ROM rebuilding is a Seagate BarraCuda ST3000DM007.

Thank you

[Masterclass]

Can someone who knows let me know who to contact?

Nobody will do that

[Lardman]

Can someone who knows let me know who to contact?

Try Pepe - http://www.adatmentes.net/

[fzabkar]

Rebuild or repair? Are you starting with an empty ROM?

[kangarootaco]

Rebuild or repair? Are you starting with an empty ROM?

Just corrupted, according to the lab that has it.

Are big companies like DriveSavers lying when they say they repair or rebuild damaged HDD ROMs?

Can someone who knows let me know who to contact?

Try Pepe - http://www.adatmentes.net/

Thank you!

[fzabkar]

Are big companies like DriveSavers lying when they say they repair or rebuild damaged HDD ROMs?

"Damaged" is not the same as "totally missing". I have repaired plenty of corrupted ROM dumps, but regenerating a ROM from nothing is a lot harder, and sometimes impossible, depending on the model.

I suspect that DriveSavers would not be able to regenerate a Seagate F3 ROM from nothing, but ICBW.

[kangarootaco]

The lab in Australia that has been working on my hard drive has given up and sent the following message for anyone interested in taking over the job:

ST3000DM007-0001-ZFQ024MJ Pre work diagnosis :

- We found issue with PCB that lead to faulty motor and head .

- ROM is corrupted with lots of error flags .

- We replaced head and Motor with working one and made the HDD to spin.

- still couldn’t resolve the ROM issue.


The drive able to unlock in techmode.


- DIR ID reading error HDD readiness timeout is the other issue we are facing.

- When trying to terminal backup 28,93 etc it freeze the system.


Solution : if you can Fix the ROM and Regenerating the translator, data can be accessed.

I'm currently trying to figure out where I will send the hard drive next.

[kangarootaco]

Attention moderators: Can I please be unmoderated with full posting permissions? Some of my posts (including an important update I'm trying to post right now) are still requiring moderator approval.

Thank you

[WebClaw]

I have my doubts this is accurate information.

The lab in Australia that has been working on my hard drive has given up and sent the following message for anyone interested in taking over the job:

ST3000DM007-0001-ZFQ024MJ Pre work diagnosis :

- We found issue with PCB that lead to faulty motor and head .

- ROM is corrupted with lots of error flags .

- We replaced head and Motor with working one and made the HDD to spin.

- still couldn’t resolve the ROM issue.


The drive able to unlock in techmode.


- DIR ID reading error HDD readiness timeout is the other issue we are facing.

- When trying to terminal backup 28,93 etc it freeze the system.


Solution : if you can Fix the ROM and Regenerating the translator, data can be accessed.

I'm currently trying to figure out where I will send the hard drive next.

[kangarootaco]

Update: Recovery Squad (Melbourne, Australia) has sent my drive to Ontrack Data Recovery (Brisbane, Australia) at my request. I paid for 24/7 service so I should get answers soon.

[kangarootaco]

Evaluation by Ontrack:

The engineers have completed the evaluation stage of your hard drive.

The engineers received multiple drives and we can see that there have been extensive attempts to recover the data, both by moving parts and platters between the drives and by attempting to modify the ROMs.

The drive labelled ‘Patient’ has suffered significant damage to the platters, including a visible fingerprint on one surface that it would deem this drive unrecoverable regardless of any logical issues that existed in the ROMs or otherwise. Below are pictures which the engineers have taken from the platters of this drive for your reference.

Unfortunately, due to the level of damage to the platters there isn’t anything our engineers can do in order to recover your data I am sorry to advise.

The engineers have provided the ROMs which you have requested, and these are attached to the email for you.

Attachments

[Lardman]

Those pictures are truly shocking, certainly can't fault ontrack for calling it unrecoverable.

Have to wonder how much of that was actually original damage. Even after cleaning the contamination there's nothing you can do about the concentric scoring to the platter and any head is going to get chewed up by the larger divots. If the platters are in that state I'd hate to see what's happened to the ROM. I think this one has died on the table.

[fzabkar]

Is that really a fingerprint, or someone's attempt to scrub the platter? In any case, as has been pointed out by someone else, the drive has 3 in-use heads ...

Moreover, the patient ROM with "error flags" is in fact 95% empty. Only the "csiD" block remains intact. The rest id 0xFF. (The OP sent me the dump privately.)

[kangarootaco]

I forwarded the report from Ontrack to Recovery Squad (with not comments) and got this reply:

We got the email of onTrack report and images attached.

I tried to contact you on Saturday morning as soon as got that email to discuss and find out what happened to the drive.

This was a big shock to us as this was not the condition of the platter when we delivered the patient drive to that collection point in Melbourne CBD ,

this type of damage is an extensive irreversible damage due to an unprofessional try to clean the platter without proper tools and solutions ,

it doesn’t even look like a fingerprint !

We use Anti Static Gloves Polyester With Conductive Carbon Lines in the cleanroom when changing heads and there is no way we damaged the platters to that extent ,

we only try to clean minor magnetic dust from the platter due to shaving the platter by torn heads with special solutions ,

if a major damage or deep scratch on the platter (Service area ) and not possible to skip the damaged area or disable the relevant heads , we simply fail the job and even

won’t try to swap the heads or order a donor drive , we didn’t fail your recover job as there was not such a condition and we could see some slim chance to correct the ROM error flags.

You already informed us that you want to try another LAB , how could we make such a big mistake and such an extensive damage on the platter knowing it will go to a professional lab

and will be opened soon by an expert and will see the damage and come back to us , this is simply impossible , we are a professional recovery company Australia wide with proven record over years ,

we had many cases which other recovery companies gave up and we could successfully recover the data with proven evidence and documents , we could not continue this business if such an unprofessional

work done on clients sensitive and important data .

We are extremely disappointed now with this end result and would like to have this drive back for further investigation of what happened to the heads and platters .

We knew the importance of your data from day one and had extra care , cautious and speed to get a result and recover your data as soon as possible,

we even didn’t try any aggressive high-risk method as per your instruction not to reduce the chance of any possible recovery .

We will try to contact you on Monday .

[kangarootaco]

The only plausible alternative I can think of to Recovery Squad being responsible for the huge scratch is that Ontrack decided that they were happy with my $1,000 emergency evaluation payment and that it wasn't worth doing any work on a drive that another lab had already given up on, so they scratched the platter as an excuse to do nothing.

[Lardman]

There would be no need to physically damage the top surface to refuse the recovery, the state of the other platters is justification enough.

Odd choice of capitalisation on the gloves description, it's almost as if it been copied from the product description of a website selling data recovery equipment.

[WebClaw]

There would be no need to physically damage the top surface to refuse the recovery, the state of the other platters is justification enough.

Odd choice of capitalisation on the gloves description, it's almost as if it been copied from the product description of a website selling data recovery equipment.

This link combined with the broken English connects the dots for me:

https://hdddonor.[.in]/product/reusable-anti-static-gloves-polyester-with-conductive-carbon-lines-specially-designed-for-data-recovery-environment-1-pair/

remove [] around .in; - I didn't want to create a link-back.

[fzabkar]

The fact that Recovery Squad refused, or was unable, to provide a ROM dump points the finger squarely at them. Ask them again to provide a ROM dump plus an SA resource dump.

They initially stated that they had begun to image your drive, but then the imaging slowed to a crawl. This means that they were originally able to get your drive to ID. This in turn means that the ROM was complete and the SA was accessible. Any competent DR workshop would have saved all the firmware resources at this time. Furthermore, your other communications (not shown here) suggest that Recovery Squad successfully unlocked your ROM, or at least they thought it was successful. This can only be done if the original ROM is successfully dumped, then modified and written back.

[fzabkar]

There is some confusion in Ontrack's attachments. The pictures identify the patient as drive #1, but the ROM dump file is named "6499698_DRIVE1_ROM.bin". This dump is mostly empty.

However, the serial number of the patient drive is ZFQ024MJ, and the corresponding ROM dump is ROM_ZFQ024MJ_92DC49AF.bin. This file is intact. This begs the question, which PCB/ROM combination is installed on the patient HDD?

[fzabkar]

This job is eerily similar:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/datarecoverycertification/jiAe-iPWf5U