I've got a Seagate ST3160023AS (7200.7, 160GB) hard drive that started reporting a size of zero gigabytes under Windows XP after functioning normally for a while.

I've built the TX/RX cable and Putty shows the following after power-up:



Hitting Ctrl-Z drops me into a prompt. From here is there anything I can do to fix this problem?

Is there a solution like there is for the 7200.11 LBA0 issue, documented here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/

Any advice is appreciated.

The "0GB" issue applies to drives built on Seagate F3 technology so this does not apply to your disk.

Have you tried to test the disk with MHDD?

_________________
Data Recovery Ireland

The drive doesn't turn up when I scan with MHDD (tried booting it directly from a floppy, and then later in a command prompt with mhdd.cfg altered to enable the primary channel).

It can see a different PATA IDE drive (containing XP) just fine however, so MHDD is working properly.
FWIW the BIOS and Win XP can detect the presence of the ST3160023AS as well. I'm not sure why it isn't coming up in MHDD.

Also I should add that I had swapped out the PCB for an identical working one and the drive had the same error, so I don't think the PCB is at fault.

I don't want to interrupt your discussion with CK, but I'll just try to help on this part:


Did you read this part on the (recently clarified) MHDD docs:

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02- ... portedhard


Your answer that MHDD didn't report the drive but your BIOS does, means that your system is not correctly setup for MHDD and the above instruction is likely to apply to you.

After setting your SATA controller to IDE / compatibility / legacy mode in the BIOS (different BIOS use different terms), then check again and reply back to the thread with the exact model name & capacity shown for your "problem" drive, and any error message from MHDD.


Possibly the right conclusion, but for the wrong reason. By swapping the PCB you likely caused a different problem, which I'll let the DR experts explain to you. Have you put the original PCB back on the drive now?

You are absolutely correct, thank you. It was called "ATA Mode" in my BIOS. Now the drive comes up under MHDD. I can read the SMART attributes (F8) and EID returns valid settings.

Here, the LBA is reported as 312,500,000 and the size as 152587MB. Funny that MHDD can see the correct capacity and WinXP can't.

In general is there any approach to using MHDD to recover data or fix the 0 LBA problem? I've been running the SCAN function for a while but have not tried anything else.



Oops. I did put the original PCB back on. Thanks so much for the tips.

Well thanks to MHDD the scan was successful, no errors of any kind. I'm amazed how quickly it operates.

Now I'm thinking I could use the ATOF command to write all the data in 2GB chunks to a target device. For example using TOF to read sectors to the RAM drive MHDD creates or the floppy disk worked fine.

However to my understanding in a pure DOS environment I don't have the option of using a USB drive or external USB HDD, and the working PATA hard drive doesn't seem to be present when booting from the floppy (just drives A: and C: (RAM disk) are present).

So it seems like there's nowhere to write the data to, that will be big enough. Or am I missing something?

I don't understand what happened, but try this freeware solution/diagnosis:
http://www.salvationdata.com/blog/seaga ... repair-50/

BTW, just how quickly did MHDD scan your drive?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

@zonks,

Personally, I would not follow your plan with MHDD as it is stated above, nor would I follow that kindly supplied by fzabkar.

I think we're in a "too many cooks" situation here, so I'll avoid wasting more time on writing a different plan since you're now getting help from someone else, and politely withdraw.

I think you need to clarify what exactly you mean by this

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Exactly drc , since IMHO the OP's description above does not agree with the MHDD output. I have a suspicion what is going on (as I expect you do), but a different plan has been suggested already

I agree that there appears to be nothing wrong with the drive, as far as BIOS and MHDD are concerned, so the Salvation Data freeware repair tool should confirm that beyond any doubt. Furthermore, this tool also writes its diagnostic output to a file, DIAGNOSIS.TXT. I didn't really expect it to solve the problem, I only expected it to eliminate any lingering doubts.

However, I find the OP's observation in regard to MHDD's scan speed to be a little suspicious. Just how fast can one scan a 160GB drive, particularly an older model? At an average transfer rate of 50MB/s, a full surface scan would require 55 minutes.

The only other idea that comes to mind is whether the drive is powering up in standby (PUIS). Could this produce the symptoms the OP is seeing?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I have no experience with the tool, and so since it claims to have the ability to modify the firmware, it could also introduce new problems, if it does something wrong (despite the claims from SD of it being safe). That is my main concern.

So if you're sure that the tool won't make things worse, then great! I don't have that knowledge or confidence in the tool and it's lack of introducing new problems, hence I would not involve it - but you introduced it, so I am politely withdrawing and leaving you to use it, in case it changes the situation.


Looking at the timestamps of the postings above, I see that the OP had much longer than that when MHDD could have been running, but no answer yet to your specific question from the OP.