Hello I have this drive that spins up fine but simply wont detect. I have tried replacing the PCB and transferring the bios over etc. Just get the same results. It was originally in a Iomega USB caddy working fine, went away for a bit came back and it wont detect!?!?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated, I have many tools such as a high end univeral programmer, rework stations etc.

Thanks, Richard.

Can you give terminal output?

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Good start. This is required for proper diagnosis.

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Does it remain spinning consistently?

Thanks for the replies.
I can confirm the drive spins but fails to detect with the old PCB containing the wrong bios chip (removed from the new board), but does not spin up at all with the new PCB which has had the old bios transferred over.
I have no hardware such as pc3000 etc would this be required for termainal output?
I have a USB - TTL adaptor but I cant find any diagrams to connect to the serial rx tx etc on the PCB.
I would I presume use a terminal program such as hyperterminal?

The drive spins constantly with the wrong bios attached, nothing with the correct bios chip.


Regards, Richard.

Sounds like ROM is bad. ROM is important as contains drive specific adaptives needed for the HDD to operate correctly.

You can maybe get lucky with a donor PCB that has correct ROM revision, but this is unlikely. Other option is to send to a professional who has the relevant equipment to modify specific SA adaptives to allow to force compatibility with a non native ROM version.

I was worrying someone was going to say that hdd guy!

Just a thought... I was suspecting the rom, is there not a repository anywhere of working roms?
It would be a good idea i think!

Even if there is a publicly available repository, what equipment do you have to program the ROM? How do you know the specific revision you need?

In either situation you would need equipment which would be more than treble the cost of a professional recovery.

Probably not what you want to hear, but maybe its time to start looking for quotes. Start with PCImage (replied to you earlier in this thread) he can definitely handle this for you.

Thanks for the reply hddguy but I can easily program pretty much any device including BGA. I have all the required equipment to read / write etc, I dont have any hard drive specific tools though. I ususally work in PCB rework and repair in anything other than hard drives!

The problem is that THIS is a hard drive...

erm...thanks

You need to identify the revision you need, not sure if this can be read from the original ROM should you be able to make a dump of it.

Without knowing exactly what you need it will be impossible finding a compatible ROM. Also, we are assuming there are no other complications.

Without certain Data Recovery specific tools I am not sure you can get this done

cheers hddguy. I might just lift the rom and read it to see what I get, if not I'll send it for pro work...