Seagate 7200.12 Pharaoh stuck in BUSY - SYS file access OK!

[michael chiklis]

Hi,
i've this 7200.12 drive stuck in busy:

FAMILY: Pharaoh
Model: STM3500418AS
FW: CC38
s/n first 3 digits: 9VM

Terminal output:

Code:

Rst 0x10M
No HOST FIS-ReadyStatusFlags 2002A185
ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>

If i try the virtual boot patch i get this rom error

i can access and backup SYS only via serial mode

read by serial.jpg (68.9 KiB) Viewed 457 times

Can someone help me, please?

This are the ROM + most important SYS backup
https://www.mediafire.com/file/jt32f952 ... 8.rar/file

[melvin]

No HOST FIS-ReadyStatusFlags 2002A185
Ring any bells?

[Lukas]

https://blog.acelab.eu.com/pc-3000-hdd- ... error.html

[michael chiklis]

No HOST FIS-ReadyStatusFlags 2002A185
Ring any bells?

If you mean translator regeneration, i already send m0,6,3,,,,,22 after sys backup, but it didn't help.

[melvin]

I meant that terminal shows you what's wrong. Most of cases it's translator issue but can be caused by few things. Did you check NRG, SMART etc?
I don't use MRT and don't know why the patch doesn't work. Is the ROM read without any errors? Maybe there's somenthing about this error on their forum/site/support.

Last edited by melvin on July 29th, 2025, 10:24, edited 1 time in total.

[michael chiklis]

Code:

F3 T>V80
Resident GList           0 entries returned
Total entries available: 0
    PBA    Len  Flags  Phy Cyl Hd  PhySctr    SFI

F3 T>/1

F3 1>N5
Att
Num  Flgs normlzd worst raw
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000
0   0000    0      0   00000000000000

F3 1>/

F3 T>V40
Nonresident GList           0 entries returned
Total entries available: 0
    PBA    Len  Flags  Phy Cyl Hd  PhySctr    SFI

F3 T>
ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>/T

F3 T>V4

Reassigned Sectors List
Entries: 0000, Retrieved: 0000, Alts: 0000, Removed: 0000, Pending: 0000, GList: 0000, RList: 0000

Idx  LBA      PBA      LLLCHS of LBA PLPCHS of PBA SFI    Hours Msecs  Status   BBM Mask

F3 T>

in terminal it let me access into p-list by sending V10 command (i didn't post here because it is very long).
Most of P-list has "80" flag, but i think it has some issues due to some other flags included as "8" - "10" - "C"

You can find the entire terminal log inside the rar file that i've uploaded on mediafire

[michael chiklis]

I don't use MRT and don't know why the patch doesn't work. Is the ROM read without any errors? Maybe there's somenthing about this error on their forum/site/support.

I used F3romExplorer 1.0.9 to check the rom, it hasn't find any flipped byte. It says all OK
About MRT, i've contacted tech support, probably they will answer me in the middle of the night... i'm located in italy, they are in china.
I've use already the virtualboot function for other cases, it worked well for those, but for this case is not working.

[melvin]

Did you edit 93/ media cache?

[michael chiklis]

Yes but not in ATA mode, i edited via terminal only after i saw that wasn't possible to get access via virtualboot by sending this:

Code:

F3 T>
ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>F"RWRecoveryFlags",00,22

(D) SATA Reset
Byte:00A2:       RWRecoveryFlags = 00

F3 T>F"BGMSFlags",00,22

(D) SATA Reset
Byte:011C:       BGMSFlags = 00

F3 T>F"PerformanceFlags",043C,22

(D) SATA Reset
Byte:057C:       PerformanceFlags = 04 3C

F3 T>F"MediaCacheControl",00,22

Invalid Diag Cmd Parameter

F3 T>

[michael chiklis]

It has issues to access into this SA addresses
LBA 000055EE 0002B2A2

[michael chiklis]

[SWM]

55EE - copy0, 2B2A2 - copy1. Mod ID 1B SysFile volume 3 ID 301. Len. 1 sector
Try to write from another or an empty sector.
...................................
If the error remains after rewriting, the recording heads are bad.

[michael chiklis]

I found how to fix it.
SOLVED!

[skinbob]

Fancy sharing how to help people going forward?

[michael chiklis]

Fancy sharing how to help people going forward?

I've already provided the solution, i just repaired the damaged SYS.
I repaired SYS 301 copy 0 by overwriting it from copy 1.
SYS 319 is the biggest SYS, but i didn't overwrite it. I only tried to read it from copy 0 (the good one) for the purpose of backing it up (it took a long time in serial mode). After that, i tried to access SYS 319 copy 1 (which was previously damaged because it returned an error while reading), but this time it had no problems opening, so i didn't touch it.

After that, i sent the translator regeneration command m0,6,3,,,,,22 again, which this time took effect. I had already tried sending the command before i was able to understand that there were corrupt SYS, from the response log on the terminal it appeared that the m0 command had completed successfully but in reality it had no effect, the disk remained in busy.