Hello all. Got a maxtor diamondmax plus 9 with a demolished PCB. Heavy duty burn damage. The model i had had no external rom. Got a donor, matched all i had to match ( code , Ardent chip , and TLA ). Hell the drives made on the same day at the same place =) Even serial number is the same with 1 letter difference. Moved the board - calibration sounds and comes ready in safe mode. Calypso , no LBA etc. Calibration = that i got the servo tracks, but still i thought maybe preamp is good enough for servo , but not good enough for SA. Moved the heads from the donor to patient. Same. Calibration, ready in safe mode. Figured ill check the original heads. Moved em to the donor. Instant ID and LBA access. So the problem seems to be with SA? After power spike ? Coincidence? Tryed hot swap - no luck. Will appreciate if anyone has any input on this or if anyone ever encountered situation like this. Happy Friday.
Alex.

Check SA modules.
Can also be that during failure you have zapped servo on the areas "sweeped" by the head before parking.
Can you read the SA completely (modules + groups) possibly in PC3K notation from ALL heads with no bads and most of all NO HICCUPS ?
If so, can you attach it ? What is the ROM checksum ?
Can you get complete access to SA-C if present and if so what is the checksum for SA-C ?

Patient with donor heads gives no access to anything on the surface. Nada. Electronics only. Backing up resources from the patient now , going to make a loader and see where it takes me. I joined the data recovery scene to late and barely saw these maxtors. The only thing i did to them is internals when i was training with the head swaps and looking what drives are booby trapped and what drives are ok. Most likely going to outsource this one since i am not comfortable repairing SA on it if it is potentially data destructive.

edit. Donor drive with patients heads inside. Did a full SA scan. Got a few bads on the event log and SAMART. Dont see it as critical. Got a loader.

What you think it's not critical, CAN be critical, instead

Attach full SA when possible

Heya BlackST. Sry missed Monday , came in today and the drive is already outsourced.Ty for extended helping hand though =)
Cheers.
Alex.

Update. According to the gent my boss outsources the drives to - SA is mostly wiped. Looks like BlackST was correct in his assumption.