Heh, thanks guys. He's 8 weeks yesterday and doing really well.

Also, I've finally gotten that Seagate drive back in the office yesterday. Have loaded it up to remind myself exactly of the symptoms it is now exhibiting: Power is applied, it spins up, showing BSY on the ATA registers. I hear a faint tick, and then hear nothing more (the drive remains spinning and busy).

My PC3K Portable lacks a terminal connector for this model (and also seems to lack most ACE models in its database, including this one unfortunately), however I have a TTL serial connector I made some time back with Rx, Tx and Gnd pins. I have 8 pins on this PCB so need to work out if it is possible to connect this way, and to then use PuTTy over the COM port to monitor the Terminal at startup.

Can anyone advise the correct Tx, Rx and Gnd pins for this board? Any/all help greatly appreciated. I'll post the Terminal log up for your interest too, as I work on the drive. Thanks guys.

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

Thanks for that. After you posted it I've realised I couldn't see the forest for the trees, that was a simple forum or Google search. I appreciate the time for answering such a relatively simple question when I should have known better! Will come back soon with terminal output for anyone following along. Thanks again nw

Most welcome.

This is interesting case, I would like to see that terminal output.

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

Here we go. Powered up the drive with the TTL interface connected at 9600 baud:



Platters may have been damaged from the heat after all. Hmm

^^ I'm thinking the SA may be damaged given the radiant head experienced by the drive. The heads are fresh, taken from a healthy donor drive and the transplant went very smoothly (I put the source platters into the donor chassis, as the source chassis was toast... toasted?). IF the donor heads are still good (no reason to think otherwise) and I did not cause alignment issues with the transplant (was careful and it was not an overly difficult operation given the age of the drive), I am left to conclude the SA is not readable. Maybe even the platters are not readable at all...

Any thoughts on this one, guys? Ideas very welcome at this stage. Thanks!

Error in reading the defect list could be caused by a lot of things, indeed. Does the drive makes small tiny beeps when spinning? Does terminal display ANYTHING else after that?

There MIGHT be some chance with this drive. I'd love to take a look, free of charge, but I'm too far away

Maybe someone else can advise you further.

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

+1

Thanks for the support, guys.

To answer your question, leaving the drive running does not result in any further terminal activity. No small tiny beeps when spinning, though there is a tick. Tell you what, I'll record it and will post it up. Watch this space.

Right then, I've recorded the sound of the drive spinning up using an analogue telephone pickup placed over the head assembly screw location on the closed lid, playing through a cheap 9V amp speaker.

Here's the drive powering up, appearing as 'BSY' on the DDI's ATA register throughout. (Ignore the sound at 14 sec, which is not from the drive but from the outside environment somewhere). When the drive spins down, that's because I cut the power on the DDI. During this entire time, the drive's terminal showed only what I pasted in my previous post here, nothing more.

Sorry, all I can hear is a chopper flying above your head

The recording is very bad with a lot of noise, I can't make anything of it.

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

On the contrary, it was a crystal-clear recording, however the type of recording was possibly not expected (analogue pickup through amplified speaker). It doesn't give you the 'pure' sound of the drive but the amplifier emphasizes every little nuance made by the drive, which I find useful in diagnosis.

Instead, here's a recording of the drive itself, no amplification. This makes it harder to clearly record and so you'll need to turn the volume right up for playback. You'll hear the motor spin up and then one very quiet tick, and then that's all you'll hear. This is what my ear hears too, when close to the drive. Only the amplified signal as linked above gives a better indication that anything at all is going on inside the drive, it's that quiet.

Hopefully between the two files this is of some use to you! Thanks again for taking a look at it.

The latest: MCU chips are not a match. Am looking for a compatible donor board. The one I have is identical in marking and revision, although the MCU and RAM modules are from different manufacturers so this could be a problem. Am wondering whether the source MCU will still function (or the entire PCB for that matter, if I was to clean it up).

By the looks of it, I doubt that, but it won't hurt to try.

Now that's more like it.
I think I do not hear heads calibrate or anything besides drive spinning up.

Make sure you match everything and try again. No beeping and no clicking means you've probably done a pretty good job so far so it's worth the trouble.


You're most welcome.

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

The orig PCB powers up but is showing symptoms of incorrectly connected cable (all ATA registers ON). I think it may still work as it spins up on another drive I tested it with, so I'll solder a fresh IDE interface onto it today and we'll see how we go.

PCB is now repaired, as far as I can tell. However, I'm now seeing the same symptoms with this board as with the donor board (BSY at power-up, same sounds), leading me to look back at the drive's internals again.

I'm afraid I have no further suggestions without looking at the drive itself.

Maybe someone else has a good idea that would help you remotely.

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

I got an idea.

PM sent

Thanks for your help thus far, guys. I've not made any further progress on this one (yet) but have been working on it. I really appreciate the PM too, freakzy. I was unable to get the drive to start in Safe Mode, unfortunately. This remains a work in progress for now. Thanks all.

Hm, I've gotten differing advice from Ace Labs for this drive's pin outs:


Previous configuration caused damage to one of my spare PCBs here, so I've been cautious about retrying. Am preparing to test the drive again now with this information. Posting here in case it helps someone else too.