The disk is a Barracuda 7200.12 750GB ST3750528AS
Firmware HP34.

The drive is not recognized by BIOS. I have tried several systems with the same result. Further, whatever the drive is doing, seems to kill the whole SATA bus as no other SATA device is recognized by BIOS in a system when this drive is attached.

I have attempted to diagnose the drive using SeaTools for DOS, but the software does not see the drive. I have downloaded a copy of MHDD and will try that shortly, but am not expecting results given the inability to even recognize the drive so far.

I have access to the Diagnostic command line, but I am not certain what do do there. I have read the list commands at http://www.itosaka.com/WordPress/wp-con ... ommand.pdf but (a) some of the commands do not work (ex. in level T, I attempted the command D to display logs, but get a response "Invalid Diag Cmd") and (b) Im still not sure what I should be doing.

In anycase, the drive spins up and spins down without problem, and displaying the SMART Critical Log entries (N8) returns nothing.

As far as sounds go, the drive is mostly quiet. I hear two slight ticks when the drive spins up, but I have certainly heard much more noise from drives that were functioning.

Any suggestions on how to diagnose what is wrong with the drive would be greatly appreciated. Once I know the problem, I can make a decision to attempt a DIY or contract with a professional.

Connect to diagnostic terminal, no SATA cable. Power on hard drive. Post boot messages, so you can get advice. Keep your hands off keyboard and wait few minutes just in case more messages are coming out.

This is what I see:



After ten minutes, nothing else.

Hi,

But the drive keeps spinning after ten minutes, or has spinned down?

Yes, the drive keeps spinning.

I only mention 10 minutes so you know how long I waited before I decided that nothing else was going to happen. The messages I posted above appear within 1-2 seconds after power-up (the first line almost immediately with the second following after a second or two delay) and then no change until I remove power.

If you press CTRL + Z while power up, what can you see on terminal output?

i am no expert in hdd but from my experience from electronics field, i can say its Logic Board problem, try to find same HW/SW version Logic Board and test.
if you can find 100% compitable board, it must work .
best of luck
regards
AshwaniGaur

When you learn more about disk drive design & operation, you will then understand why you cannot say that this "must" resolve the original problem.

If it's really what I think it is, it's nothing related to the PCB.

Funny thing is that there's still a lot of people that think that swapping PCB's makes miracles.

Fully agree...

Well, not even that is necessary to know that (for I know it too that you cannot generalize things that way )
For instance, one of the cases where a device "killed" a bus was when I had TWO (good ol' PCI) controller cards in. I borrowed another from a friend (Adaptec), replacing one of my two (VIA stuff) and voila, everything worked!!
Whilst I would always get 4x Device = None in auto-detection with that one card.
(And no, the card was NOT broken! When used standalone without another card inserted at the same time, there were no problems at all, neither in detection nor in live operation.)
It seems to me some stubborn controllers can't for the life of them be made compatible with some particular hardware. Appears to be quite similar with human beings at times. (LOL)

I was talking specifically about the advice given by AshwaniGaur, for the original problem described by the OP, due to those specific symptoms, which are not necessarily related to a PCB problem at all.

As you say, there are problems with the generalisations in that advice which was given too - I decided not to focus on those in my earlier reply.

As I understand your point, you are talking more generally about compatibility - that is a whole different subject, and of course I have also experienced (and had to diagnose) such problems using PCI analysers, ICE and similar tools. Great fun

so.. when you press in the terminal CTRL+Z what happens?
and if you power on only the pcb disconnected from the hard drive and after a while press ctrl+z in the terminal, what happens?

_________________
Italian Recovery - Italian Data Recovery Company
http://www.italianrecovery.it

Yes, I had gotten it that far first time.


I realize now it was me who was confusing: I wrote "not even that is necessary" - it should read like this: "you don't even need to have years of experience with drive diagnostic and the like to know that such generalizations cannot be made" = there are much simpler things that give you a clear proof you cannot, e. g. said "stubborn" controller cards, i. e. once you've experienced this behavior, you are never going to generalize matters by blaming the "logic board" again (like the user above) Instead, you soon realize it's one of a list of causes that may (or may not) be the culprit.


Tell me about it.

Of course your point (and your following explanation) are very true, and unfortunately many people still seem to make those generalisations.

As I said before, I considered making a similar point about incorrect generalisations, but decided not to in this case (I've done that on here many times in the past, and I get bored explaining it to so many new posters, so thanks for taking your time to explain it to readers this time. )

I think we're all waiting for more terminal output from the OP...

Good. Lets focus on the subject.
Remember: removing PCB and cleaning contacts, it is what Pro's will do first.

BTW, ( but please don't argue on off-topic) the words used "must work" is weaker form than "have to work". I see no generalization either, just passing personal experience. Discussion of such kind provides to nothing.

Well here it is, although I dont think its terribly interesting:

CTL-Z produces the following output:

@ddevejian,

Let's consider some points that haven't been investigated yet, as far as I can see:

What's the history of this drive? What happened just before this problem started? Do you remember each terminal command that you performed already (e.g. did you keep a log of your terminal sessions so far)?

@SAjunky,


At least one common dictionary disagrees with you, and states that those are synonyms:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/must

But, as I think you are saying, I agree that you're raising an off-topic point.

Approx 2 years old, was an original part to the PC as I purchased it. No problems that I can report. The evening before the PC worked fine. My last action was to start copying about 3GB of photos off of a SD card. I started the copy and went to bed. The next morning it was stuck at the BIOS splash screen (Manufacturer's logo and f-Key options) It did not respond to keyboard input. I do not know what prompted the reboot. No other electronics in the house were affected and the PC is protected by a UPS, so I do not think a power surge was responsible.

In anycase from that point has been recovery efforts. First attempting multiple boots of the original PC, while attaching/detaching various components in order to isolate what the problem was. Once I determined the problem was with the drive, I attempted to connect it to two other PC's without success. (The others would actually accept keyboard input, so I could get into the BIOS set up and see that the drive was not seen by BIOS.) One of the other PC's had a IDE cdrom drive, so it could boot to a CD while the drive was attached. (There was a significant delay at boot.) I attempted a SYSRECOVERYCD (v2. but it would not see the drive. (During boot, the it reported several "SRST failed (errno=-16)" messages.) I also attempted to boot a SEATOOLS for DOS CD, but the application also did not see the drive. At that point, I ordered a USB to TTL adapter and put the drive on a shelf.



I did not keep a log. (in hindsight that would have been a good idea.) From memory:

I attempted to access several logs: The attempted D command, which returned "invalid diag cmd" and the N8 to access the SMART log. The latter worked, but was blank. I examined the SMART threshholds/data (N5/N6), but nothing stood out.

I attempted to spin-up and spin-down (U and Z), to establish that I was controlling the drive.

When I first connected, I was recieving a different message on CTL-Z. I would see I did not see the associated SIM error mentioned at some sites. Based on Univeristy of Google research, I attempted to clear the SMART data (I figured since there wasnt anything interesting in there anyway . . ) with a spin down, spin up, N1 command sequence. The N1 failed, some sites suggested as an alternative a m0,2,2,,,,,22 command, but after looking that command up, I got the idea that it was formatting an area of the drive and I chickened out. At that time I decided I was out of my depth and posted here.

please dont get offended by "MUST WORK".
All i can say that if whole sata ports get blocked just when this HDD is attached, it could be due to sata controller interface on this hdd logic card.

what i mean by fully compatible means that i assume that the user understand that even with same logic card HW/SW version, he may need to replace E2P from his old hdd to new logic card which may contain some other calibration data of his hdd.

Simple test can be just remove logic card from this hdd and attach power and sata cable to it and see if still all other sata ports become DEAD, if it, than i can say 99.99% its logic card problem.

it seems logical to me atleast!!!!

regards
AshwaniGaur

PS:- NO OFFENCE TO ANY ONE, ITS JUST MY PERSONAL THINKING. I AM NOT A HDD GURU BUT I UNDERSTAND ELECTRONICS VERY WELL.