Hey all,

I have a 80gb SATA Travelstar. Judging by the sound, the drive is initializing, but will not be seen by the BIOS. MHDD Sees a unknown device attached to the machine with a 0 byte size, codes highlighted are ERR, DRSC and DRDY. I was thinking the firmware was shot, or if it is in the SA, could the preamp be toast? I'm new to hardware recovery too. Thanks

I also tried the PCB from another drive (manufactured several months apart) and nothing, even the old PCB on the new drive wouldn't work. Should I try to hot swap them?

on mhdd tried to scan and check wich ATA registers show´s? ERR ABRT?,

Best Regards

I tried the hot swap and the drive was no longer seen. Any good software tools to use here?

It is too early to use any type of software.

You better start reading and learning or take your drive to a pro.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

Hi HarddriveSpecialist,

COULD YOU PLEASE RESPOND TO MY PRIVATE MESSAGES WHICH I HAD SENT SO FAR.

-RDS.

harddrivespecialist,

What do you mean it is too early to use any software? You mean some hardware tricks should be done first? I have been reading and learning as you put it, and from what I had gathered, I had done all that I could do with the hardware besides a head swap. The only thing MHDD can tell me about the drive is when I select the controller. It is aware that something is attached, it doesn't know what it is, and it is 0mb in size. Otherwise, the program is unable to talk to it. Repair Station is able to recognize that a IBM/Hitachi drive is attached, but that is not a supported manufacturer of drive for that program. Did I miss anything?

Sounds like the drive is "drivelocked". If you have access to the notebook it was previously installed in you can find out for sure. Unfortunately with IBM/Hitachi; if the drive is "drivelocked" there are only two ways I have heard of to unlock it. The first is with PC3000UDMA using probes. The other is to have access to the notebook, and you must reprogram the eeprom chip on the notebooks motherboard.

Locked HDDs will still identify in BIOS. HotSwap may not work because of incompatibility of NVRAM. Is there any clicking before HDD reaches DRSC DRDY? What is the model of the disk? Do you have access to PC3000?