Hi all,
my main HD (Maxtor DiamondMax 22 - STM3500320AS) is not recognised by the BIOS any longer. The evening I switched off the PC and the day after it did not boot.
The disk spins, but no way to get in touch with it.

I was going to buy a new PCB but the vendor worned me that very likely it is not a PCB problem but the firmware corrupted.

So, my newby question is: how do I identify the real cause? If it is really the FW, how do I reprogram it?

Thanks in advance for your help,

G.

See this thread:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/mes ... 467#M18467

Depending on the problem, Seagate may offer you free data recovery.

It is not PCB on this one. Could be Seagate problem for busy. Before you try to do what fzabkar has suggested get your drive looked at to determine the exact problem with it. If you try and use the busy fix and it is not this problem then you brick your drive. Normally you can see a shop to give free inspection of this and give you or tell you what is wrong with it. You are not obligated to recover your disk by a shop. But if you follow instructions and this is not your problem then you disk has even more problems than you started off with.

_________________
Iorana Haraharaini

But you get a hi-tech multipurpose paperweight / doorstop.

januz_, if you watch this forum for long enough, you will become familiar with the dynamics. I'm not a DR guy, but I try to help as best as I can. The other two only seem to want to intimidate or dissuade people from attempting DIY repairs, no matter how simple.

BTW, your drive is already "bricked".

How do you know this one. I am not trying to tell him not to do this one. I only said that if he did it and it was not the busy problem he would brick his drive. I suggested to him to go and ask a shop to check it for him before he attempted to do what you are suggesting for him to do.

If you are so smart then why not ask him to send you this drive and you will fix it for him for free. You seem to ask people to perform tasks they are not capitable of doing. In some cases you advise is fine and can work and in other you will have a person with no experience screw up their drive totally.

Seems to me you are the only one here that knows what they are doing. So in these cases collect these drives fix them for them get off their data and then send it back to them for free. Your free advice in a lot of cases will cause these people to destroy their drives. Keep up the good work. You are the only one now on this forum who has the right answer and why should anyone help except you.

BTW I should not let people llike you get to me. You are who you are and nobody can change you. But if you are so smart in all this and have so much time on your hands invest it in helping do the DIY repairs for them for free. I could care less if anyone out there wants to do a DIY repair it is not my problem. I will never suggest to them to send a drive to French Polynesia it is way too far and way out of the way. But for you it might be easier to give you these drives and let your magic perform wonders for them. Maybe after you have fixed a couple of them and gotten data off of them people would respect what you say more.

_________________
Iorana Haraharaini

My advice is free, but my labour is not, although I do work cheap. I have already helped many people with their DIY data recovery, both logical and physical. That said, all the DIY repairs have been relatively simple jobs requiring no special tools or commercial software. I certainly have no pretensions of being a DR "guru", or even a DR amateur. Please don't encourage people to send their jobs to me.

'Already bricked' : NO. It will become bricked for sure if you apply 'fixes' and there's another problem too i.e. SA or HS. Then a lot of work and money will be necessary. I am in Italy , if you need data recovery or complete diagnose pm me.

"The disc spins but is not recognised by the BIOS any longer." That makes it a brick as far as the OP is concerned. If this is a symptom of the BSY firmware bug, then the OP should contact Seagate who will arrange free data decovery, including courier pickup and delivery. No need to send it to a "pro".

In any case, the terminal output will help "identify the real cause". It may help to know the firmware revision also. BTW, the OP asked, "If it is really the FW, how do I reprogram it?" Clearly, he intends to go the DIY route.

First, thanks to all for the comments.
If I'm entitled to do it, probably at the end I'll ship the drive to Seagate.
BTW, as fzabkar understood, before, I'd like to have a bit of fun. With my request I was looking for the "experimenter kit" (sw or documentation) that could help in the game.
For example, if I connect via serial to the drive, can I give a non desctructive command or use a sw tool to refine the diagnose?

G.

Auguri. - Good luck.

All you need to do to check for FW bug is terminal into it then power it up and check the error message. If it spits out something like "000000ce faddr:0028e24b" then chances are good that the drive is locked due to the .11 firmware bug; in which case the common fix should get this drive operational again.

Cheers