HDD GURU FORUMS

Hello,

We've got in an SSD for recovery. Kingston SSDnow 200 V+ SandForce SF2281.



I know they are not support by PC3000 but this one might have a different problem.

SATA Interface is completely down.



After making some measurements i got to the conclusion that all voltages seems to be ok. All rails are ok.

Also no bad shorted to ground capacitors. No visible burnt resistors under the microscope.



I noticed this one has an eprom on board



Which in other cases is missing from the board:

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php ... ngston+200

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=36313

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=35783

It is an I2C EEPROM of 256 Kbit (32Kbyte) from ST M24256BR. Datasheet here: https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/m24256-br.pdf



I tried to read with external programmer, and it seems pretty dead, as it reads only ff ff ff ff.

Judging by it's size (32k) i guess it can be some boot code inside. I think it might be the cause of the problem.

So I've got the Kingston firmware update files to see if there is something that can fit into this chip, but of course update VIC_Files are around 441 - 443 KB. No luck in there.

Does anybody have this type of ssd and can read eeprom?

Thanks.

Hello ,
Which programmer are you reading this with

Do you see anything at the terminal port?

If you decide you want to outsource you could talk to Northwind. They are in Greece and have some solutions for SandForce.

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:Hello ,
Which programmer are you reading this with

I tried with Willem and TNM5000. I can read chip on both but all is FF FF.

After that i tried to fill with random values, write, read and compare values.

Chip seems to be ok, but somehow it got empty.

fzabkar wrote:Do you see anything at the terminal port?

No voltage and no communication on terminal port.

HaQue wrote:If you decide you want to outsource you could talk to Northwind. They are in Greece and have some solutions for SandForce.

I talked to Northwind on another case. Problem is I had no customer so far willing to pay for his great service.

MasterT wrote:

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:Hello ,
Which programmer are you reading this with

I tried with Willem and TNM5000. I can read chip on both but all is FF FF.

After that i tried to fill with random values, write, read and compare values.

Chip seems to be ok, but somehow it got empty.

fzabkar wrote:Do you see anything at the terminal port?

No voltage and no communication on terminal port.

HaQue wrote:If you decide you want to outsource you could talk to Northwind. They are in Greece and have some solutions for SandForce.

I talked to Northwind on another case. Problem is I had no customer so far willing to pay for his great service.

Well,
What Is The IC Number According To You ,Is That Supported ,I Think Its a Old Type Serial EPROM like the 93 series .

HaQue wrote:If you decide you want to outsource you could talk to Northwind. They are in Greece and have some solutions for SandForce.

Hello,
I have a viewpoint on some of the services that we guys cannot handle ,Lets take a typical Example of foreign DR Firms

1 : Logical Recovery 150 ~ 250 Dollars US
2 : Semi Physical 450 Dollars US
3 : Physical 800 Dollars US

So some of our seniors can do this but they quote so high prices ,Whats the point ,When the secret remains with them ,They should quote sensible so that they make very good money and get repeat job as all clients will approve .Example when i wanted a quote for Dual translator recovery i got a quote that none in india approve ,I tried to give rates to two clients

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:Well,
What Is The IC Number According To You ,Is That Supported ,I Think Its a Old Type Serial EPROM like the 93 series .

As I said it's an I2C EEPROM, it uses AT24Cxx Algorithm, it has nothing to do with microwire 93cxx series.

It's supported by both programmers as 24c256, i can read / write and it works fine.

The problem might not be at all in this eprom, maybe it's not even used. A conclusion can be made only if compared with a working one of the same model.

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:Hello,
I have a viewpoint on some of the services that we guys cannot handle ,Lets take a typical Example of foreign DR Firms

1 : Logical Recovery 150 ~ 250 Dollars US
2 : Semi Physical 450 Dollars US
3 : Physical 800 Dollars US

So some of our seniors can do this but they quote so high prices ,Whats the point ,When the secret remains with them ,They should quote sensible so that they make very good money and get repeat job as all clients will approve .Example when i wanted a quote for Dual translator recovery i got a quote that none in india approve ,I tried to give rates to two clients

Well they put their time effort and knowledge to develop these solutions and it's up them how high they appreciate their work.

Also it's up to the market to decide if the price will be paid or declined.

Maybe they have enough cases to work on which makes it worth keeping the secret.

But hey, never know until you are in their shows.

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:

HaQue wrote:If you decide you want to outsource you could talk to Northwind. They are in Greece and have some solutions for SandForce.

Hello,
I have a viewpoint on some of the services that we guys cannot handle ,Lets take a typical Example of foreign DR Firms

1 : Logical Recovery 150 ~ 250 Dollars US
2 : Semi Physical 450 Dollars US
3 : Physical 800 Dollars US

So some of our seniors can do this but they quote so high prices ,Whats the point ,When the secret remains with them ,They should quote sensible so that they make very good money and get repeat job as all clients will approve .Example when i wanted a quote for Dual translator recovery i got a quote that none in india approve ,I tried to give rates to two clients

I try to worry about what I do, not others. In the grand scheme of things it usually makes no difference. In the end it really comes down to the customer anyway.

FF in EEPROM , for Sandforce SF2281 it is ok. They should be empty this way, moreover, if you remove ROM from working good SF SSD , it will work.
For SF1222 , things are different of course.
Search for issue with your SSD elsewhere.
Regarding update file VIC , it is encrypted and contains many things including microcode, many overlays and a lot of listings. If you want you can decrypt it and can see all that staff.