All:

I am new to this particular forum, but already a big fan of the bright minds on here. So anyways, I am not sure of rules/policies here -- specifically if whether what I am about to present belongs in this new thread or as part of one of the many old threads on similar topics, so if the admin can please advise.

My issue:

I have a ST3750330AS, firmware SD81, SN starting with 5Q. Per Seagate, this is a drive that is NOT affected by their firmware bug, but there are many people who were told the same thing, yet their drive was "bricked" with same BSY issue as SD15, and they fixed it the same way (or so is my understanding from the the posts).

In any case, for me also, one day my drive was working fine. I restart the machine, the drive is recognized that time, but Windows boot sequence shows errors. I restart again, by reset switch, this time the drive is not detected at all. I power the machine off, and stick a Windows installation disk in the drive (in case I just need to repair the installation or MBR), this time the drive detects, but the installer pretty much hangs from launching windows and the HDD busy light is lit solid red. I hit reset, and the drive is not detected by the Bios. I turn off again, carefully remove the drive, make sure it is cool, and try the drive on other ports. In all cases now, (cold boot, or boot after reset), the drive is not recognized at all (the system does hang a little trying to recognize it however). The drive does spin up, with completely normal sounds, etc.

Prior to this, there were no SMART warnings or such, or any degraded performance, noises, etc, that would imply oncoming failure. With this said, I believe it to also be BSY issue (not LBA 0) or anything else. I suppose it could be a larger PCB related issue.

Any thoughts so far?

My approach was to try the terminal connection and see if I do at least have control of the motor. There are files on the drive that I do want, and I'd like to see them in the original folder structure. I don't care for the OS, but its an NTFS drive and I'd like the original long filenames. As you can tell, I have some good and bad experiences with recovery software.

So anyway, would using the commands at the start of the BSY fix indeed determine that my PCB is ok? Spin up and spin down, should not change what is written on the platters, is that correct? What I mean to say is, by doing this, the data on the platters should stay in tact. ?

Reading the process, the piece wanted to understand was the last step, of formatting and creating partitions? I presume it is always necessary, but I am curious what it actually does to the disk and can it cause damage to the file system (making data recovery harder or worse yet impossible). My disk is a single partition of 750GB.

I appreciate you advice.

Thanks

I think you should have started a new thread. Anyways.

I am not really sure the problem of your drive is the f/w issue of those 7200.11.
When these drives get bricked, they get bricked. They don't ID once, then not, then ID again before they fail completely.

The safest way to figure this out is to connect to terminal and see what is the outcome. After you do this, post here the terminal output.

Since I understand you truly care about the data of this drive, I still would suggest you trust a pro with this. A wrong terminal command can brick your drive forever.
It wouldn't be that costly and you will be safe about your data.

Onto your other questions, yes, these drives are affected by f/w bug, no spinning down the drive and then up AND ASSUMING that your drive has no severe media damages or head problems will not harm the data that it holds and I do not think there is any problem with your pcb (by what you describe).

Again, a terminal output would help and AGAIN, If you are unsure of what you're doing, consult a pro.

Good luck.

_________________
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SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Northwind,

Thanks for the information. The f/w bug has been reported as failing to ID immediately, not off and on, which made me suspicious as well.

Well, I should be able to get to working on this tomorrow, and I will certainly post my terminal output.


Thanks again for the info and the wish of luck

In the meantime, I'd appreciate if someone can please provide feedback on my other question?

Specifically, I was curious of a more technical explanation of the partition re-formatting? I haven't been able to find a good explanation for my geek curiosity, though I know it works. Exactly what is happening there? And how does it affect the booting of Windows Vista (since this is boot drive) or will this damage BCD?


Thanks

Well everyone. I guess I have my answer, that this is not the bricking issue. That could have been there as well, but there must be something else here.

I was able to successfully complete all the steps. Everything was as predicted, nothing took longer than expected either, so with that I am hoping that would be sufficient to rule out any physical issues with the drive. (PCB, spindle motor, etc).

After finishing the process, I was able to get the drive to detect. On a cold boot, after removing and replacing the SATA cable, I can get the drive to show up in the bios. The drive shows up as 750GB, LBA supported, SMART supported, etc. I've disabled SMART, to rule that out.

Continuing on, once the drive shows up at POST, I've tried Windows and a Linux live cd. Windows hangs - while starting, I can hear it trying to read the disk. I see the disk busy light. After a long while, windows starts, but without showing the disk (even in computer manager). The linux rescue cd, boots just fine, but again, cannot mount the drive. The busy light in windows doesn't show up until late in the sequence. I had tried Linux to see if a more simple driver would help the situation.

Here is the output from the Terminal:




F3 T>/2

F3 2>Z

Spin Down Complete
Elapsed Time 0.147 msecs
F3 2>U

Spin Up Complete
Elapsed Time 10.436 secs
F3 2>/1

F3 1>N1

F3 1>
F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 00, Max Certify Rewr
ite Retries = 0000
User Partition Format 5% complete, Zone 00, Pass 00, LBA 00004339, ErrCode 000
00080, Elapsed Time 0 mins 05 secs
User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 05 secs

F3 T>

Let me know your thoughts on this case.


Thanks everyone!

There was no reason to send a commands thru terminal.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

ok harddrivespecialist, what would you have advised then? this was model with the firmware issues, so we wanted rule that out.

@sfdoctorp,

I'm not replying on behalf of harddrivespecialist, but if you look at the earlier suggestion from northwind, the suggestion was just to connect to the terminal. Running commands via the terminal was not mentioned. We now don't know what the original situation was, as those commands have now been run, and things could have been changed as a result.

Rather than me giving you yet another viewpoint, let's wait for those people helping already to give their comments (if any).

FYI, you could have ruled-out the BSY problem without running any commands, by doing as northwind suggested, collecting the terminal output during power-on, and looking for the specific signature of the BSY problem in that terminal output.

Finally, I politely suggest that you don't duplicate your questions / postings in that second thread, where you are giving the same information. One risk is that readers will see that they are duplicating effort by reading/replying to your other thread, and hence people may just give-up helping you in any thread, when they see that you're wasting their time by that duplication. Just a suggestion...

Vulcan,

Thanks for the response. I perhaps misunderstood. I thought we wanted to at least confirm Spin Up / Spin Down, which should not have changed anything. The only actions that actually did anything would be erasing SMART and of course the partition format. Before the partition format, I did power down and power up the drive with the terminal connected.

Anyways, I am eager to hear ideas on possible next steps.


Thanks!

@sfdoctorp,


You're welcome.


Yes, I think so.


Nobody suggested doing that, in reply to your questions.


Based on the terminal output you have supplied, I think you mean that you had the terminal connected when you used the terminal Z & U commands (which spin-down/-up the spindle motor). That is not the same as powering-up the drive with the terminal connected.

Hi Vulcan,

No, I specifically mean physically powered the drive up with the terminal connected. Not the spin up and spin down. Not getting into what was said before on the forum, I am referring to specific instructions I had. After N1, the power to the drive was shut off. With there terminal still connected, after a few seconds, power was given back to the drive.

Indeed, spin up and spin down is NOT the same as what I was referring to.

If you feel it could help, I can connect the drive again, and power it up.

OK Do this:

1. Prepare the equipment you're having to access terminal.
2. Connect your equipment to drive.
3. Make sure all settings on your hyperterminal (?) are correct (ie. baud rate etc), and connection is available.
4. Power drive.
5. Tell us what the terminal output is.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

On a different note , i did clear the busy bug from SD81 FW in the past. Same thing , seagate claimed the drive is not affected , yet it very much was =)

Many times

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Seagate lie? Surely not!!!

We have seen dozens of these.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

So unfortunately, just as I was afraid, I received zero information in the terminal, while powering the drive on.

As discussed, i turned the terminal on. It was connected and running. Then I turned the drive on, but literally no output. It was as if it was not connected, but I know that is not the case because once I pressed Ctrl+z, I immediately saw F3 T>

I tried this again afterwards. Basically no start up information, but the terminal is active and responding to my input, once on, it seems.

Re-power your drive while terminal is connected.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

Re-power with terminal on, although if your drive was suffering from bsy bug it would have shown the led cc error anyways.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Hi All,

Per the standard approach, on having only the power connector and the terminal wires (without the SATA data cable). There is no info on power-on. Placing an index card between the board and the contacts, and power on, still no message. Basically, the RST message nor the LED message are showing. You get the terminal prompt after Ctrl+Z, but nothing until then.

I ran a series of outputs (simple control commends, like Ctrl-L) and finally tried to use standard terminal approach (Ctrl C) to restarting the drive, but this is where things were interesting (Bogus ISR).

Here is the full output.

F3 T>
TetonST 2.0 SATA Moose Gen 3.0 (RAP fmt 10 ) w/sdff (RV )
Product FamilyId: 27, MemberId: 03
HDA SN: 5QK0NKM0, RPM: 7206, Wedges: 108, Heads: 6, Lbas: 575466F0, PreampType:
00 00
PCBA SN: 0000K904LF0B, Controller: TETONST_2(639D)(3-0E-3-5), Channel: AGERE_COP
PERHEAD_LITE, PowerAsic: MCKINLEY Rev 51, BufferBytes: 2000000
Package Version: MS011B.SDD8.AD090D., Package P/N: 100506680, Package Builder ID
: 3K,
Package Build Date: 02/07/2008, Package Build Time: 16:01:26, Package CFW Versio
n: MS01.SDD8.00059553.3K00,
Package SFW1 Version: B100, Package SFW2 Version: C0FE, Package SFW3 Version: --
--, Package SFW4 Version: ----
Controller FW Rev: 02071601, CustomerRel: SD81, Changelist: 00059553, ProdType:
MS01.SDD8, Date: 02/07/2008, Time: 160126, UserId: 00000761
Servo FW Rev: B100
RAP Format Rev: 0092, Contents Rev: 15 05 01 08
Features:
- Quadradic Equation AFH enabled
- VBAR with adjustable zone boundaries enabled
- Volume Based Sparing enabled
- IOEDC enabled
- IOECC enabled
- DERP Read Retries enabled
ChipRev: 0D00; No Host; SpdLimit: No; SSC: No; LED: No; StagSpinByp: Yes;

AT Registers
100A0000: 0001 0001 0000 0000 0000 C0FF 1080 0042
100A0010: 0000 0000 0000 1C00 0000 2B00 0000 0000
100A0020: 0100 0000 00E2 0410 0000 0001 0000 1B00
100A0030: 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001
100A0040: 0000 00FB 0000 0000 0000 0400 0000 00FF
100A0050: 0000 0000

SATA Core Registers
100A0800: 4018 000F 0000 0000 0000 0000 0002 0320
100A0810: 0000 0001 0000 0005 5DC0 C1C5 9C00 3333
100A0820: 764D A494 1000 96A8 1010 0004 0000 0001
100A0830: 0000 0007 0000 F0C0 F040 0000 0000 0000
100A0840: 0020 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A0850: 0000 0000 0000 0040 0000 4141 0810 000F
100A0860: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0002 3002 0123
100A0870: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000
100A0880: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000
100A0890: 0000 0000 0000 0076 0000 C480 0000 0000
100A08A0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1000 0001 D100
100A08B0: 0000 0000 0000 00FF 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A08C0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A08D0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A08E0: 0000 0000 0000 5032 5232 5032 5232 0000
100A08F0: 0000 0000 0000 0F00 0000 7878 7878 0000

SATA SSIP / Phy Registers
100A0400: 0408 0006 0023 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A0410: 8001 0800 3910 1020 772E 1D84 1D84 003D
100A0420: 003D 0085 0085 0C39 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A0430: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A0440: C280 192A 0D00 202A 0C23 0C05 0160 097C
100A0450: 03FF 0000 0000 0500 1FFC 003C 5555 5555
100A0460: 0055 5555 5555 0055 0C39 0000 0000 0000

SATA Vis Mux Registers
100A0600: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100A0610: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

SATA Test Mux Registers
100A0F50: xxxx xxxx 0000 0040 0000

VBM Cache Search Registers
10012680: 0000 0000 0000 0000 007F 0000 0000 00FF
10012690: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

Traverser Regs
10012700: 0000 0000 0000

Host Data Manager Regs Bank 0
10012800: 0007 0000 7FFF 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
10012810: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

Disc Data Manager Registers Bank 0
10012900: 0C07 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
10012910: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

PBM Memory Controller Registers
10012A00: 0090 000B 000C 1235 0033 2002 0020 4536
10012A10: 0082 0000

Hardware Phy Event Counters
00000000: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
00000010: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
R_ERR on RX FIS Non-data: 00000, Data: 00000
R_ERR on TX FIS Non-data: 00000, Data: 00000
F3 T>/2

F3 2>Z

Spin Down Complete
Elapsed Time 0.128 msecs
F3 2>U

Spin Up Complete
Elapsed Time 10.367 secs
F3 2>/1

F3 1>N1

F3 1>
F3 T>
EchoInterfaceCmds: On

F3 T>
ATA 15 Cmds
Ts(ms) dT(ms) Op Cnt LBA
0 99999999 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000
0 0 00 0000 000000000000

RW 32 Cmds
Ts(ms) dT(ms) xT(ms) Type Option Mode St EC Info
1609827 99999999 4 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00008
1E2 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
1609831 4 8 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00008
1E2 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
1609839 8 4 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00027
B32 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
1609844 5 5 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
42D C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
1609850 6 8 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
42D C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D3C/0059DBB/0059D3C
1609858 8 8 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00005
42D C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D3C/0059DBB/0059D3C
1609866 8 4 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00024
D7D C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D3C/0059DBB/0059D3C
1609871 5 3 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
42E C:00000003 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059E16/0059F95/0059E16
1609875 4 8 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00005
42E C:00000003 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059E16/0059F95/0059E16
1609883 8 4 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00024
D7E C:00000003 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059E16/0059F95/0059E16
1609887 4 99999999 3B 002421 000000 1 00000080 SV_USR_ALT_LST
1609925 38 5 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00003
E89 C:000000DE BO:000000 B/E/S 007CF08/0083E07/007CF08
1609931 6 3 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00023
7D9 C:000000DE BO:000000 B/E/S 007CF08/0083E07/007CF08
1609744 4294967109 4 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:000
27CEE C:0000000A BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/005A1FF/0059D00
860 4293358412 10259 2F 000000 000000 1 00000080 SPN_UP NORMAL
11119 10259 237 34 000000 000000 1 00000080 UPD_TCC 0
11446 327 0 42 000000 000000 1 00000080 UNKNOWN
11466 20 17 02 001121 000000 0 43110081 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00000
000 C:00000002 BO:000000 B/E/S 00A4399/00A4498/00A4399
11486 20 6 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00000
004 C:00000010 BO:000000 B/E/S 0090199/0090998/0090199
11495 9 6 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00000
018 C:00000065 BO:000000 B/E/S 0090199/0093418/0090199
11527 32 8 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00004
95F C:00000018 BO:000000 B/E/S 0090199/05FFFFF/0090199
11537 10 2 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
540 C:00000008 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/005A1FF/0059D00
11541 4 6 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00005
540 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
11548 7 4 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00024
E90 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0059D00/0059D7F/0059D00
11552 4 5 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
F88 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0071100/007117F/0071100
11557 5 9 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00005
FE8 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0071100/007117F/0071100
11566 9 13 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00003
E89 C:00000243 BO:000000 B/E/S 007CF08/008F087/007CF08
11693 127 7 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00023
7D9 C:00000243 BO:000000 B/E/S 007CF08/008F087/007CF08
11904 211 5 02 001121 000000 1 00000080 XFR RD SYS LBA B:00007
D95 C:000000C8 BO:000000 B/E/S 005210B/005850A/005210B
11913 9 9 12 001121 000000 1 00000080 TEMP 25 degC
11922 9 9 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00006
933 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0051B0B/0051B8A/0051B0B
11932 10 73 02 002421 000000 1 00000080 XFR WR SYS LBA B:00026
283 C:00000001 BO:000000 B/E/S 0051B0B/0051B8A/0051B0B

F3 T>
Current R/W User LBA 00000000 LLL CHS 000000.0.0000 PLP CHS 000000.0.0000
R/W Status 1 R/W Error 00000080 Ready


F3 T>z

Invalid Diagnostic Command

F3 T>
F3 T>
This command is no longer supported.
Use the Online Control-L command instead.

TetonST 2.0 SATA Moose Gen 3.0 (RAP fmt 10 ) w/sdff (RV )
Product FamilyId: 27, MemberId: 03
HDA SN: 5QK0NKM0, RPM: 7206, Wedges: 108, Heads: 6, Lbas: 575466F0, PreampType:
68 03
PCBA SN: 0000K904LF0B, Controller: TETONST_2(639D)(3-0E-3-5), Channel: AGERE_COP
PERHEAD_LITE, PowerAsic: MCKINLEY Rev 51, BufferBytes: 2000000
Package Version: MS011B.SDD8.AD090D., Package P/N: 100506680, Package Builder ID
: 3K,
Package Build Date: 02/07/2008, Package Build Time: 16:01:26, Package CFW Versio
n: MS01.SDD8.00059553.3K00,
Package SFW1 Version: B100, Package SFW2 Version: C0FE, Package SFW3 Version: --
--, Package SFW4 Version: ----
Controller FW Rev: 02071601, CustomerRel: SD81, Changelist: 00059553, ProdType:
MS01.SDD8, Date: 02/07/2008, Time: 160126, UserId: 00000761
Servo FW Rev: B100
RAP Format Rev: 0092, Contents Rev: 15 05 01 08
Features:
- Quadradic Equation AFH enabled
- VBAR with adjustable zone boundaries enabled
- Volume Based Sparing enabled
- IOEDC enabled
- IOECC enabled
- DERP Read Retries enabled
This command is no longer supported.
Use the Online Control-L command instead.

Spinning Down

Spin Down Complete
Elapsed Time 12.333 secs
Delaying 5000 msec

Jumping to Power On Reset
Bogus ISR

Any thoughts on this?

Please kindly provide some suggestions, this has stumped a few of us now