Maxtor DiamondMax 40 series, second model from the largest capacity in this line.

Model 93652U8, HDA 06A, PCBA 03A, Unique, 62A, Code FA550480

PCB has

Maxtor
TNT V-3
301262101

by the motor and the TI DSP chip's lable has

A7DEA
29109LIJHT
ER
[barcode here]

It was working fine then the next day "Primary Hard disk Failure". BIOS reported it as 9 gig, I don't remember the name it said. It also clicks the heads back and forth a few times, stops for a while then repeats. Keeps doing that until the PC is turned off. I've tried it on several PCs, some it makes unable to boot or even to access BIOS setup.

NO high pitched or squeaking or scratching or scraping sounds. I've heard the awful noises of crashed heads and bad bearings before and this drive's doing none of that.

Is there any hope of getting data off it?

MHDD says the drive is calling itself a MILLENNIUM FA55048Z with a capacity around 9 Gig.

Any function in MHDD I try just returns an error.

hello bizzybody this is a firmware malfunction it can not be fixed by mhdd u can fix it by pc3000 by checking its firmware structure . and replacing the bad modules with the good one . for that u need firmware of the same hdd .

Hi bizzybody,
I think this case is not an easy one! Could be as bad PCB, bad Fw and also bad head(there are 8 ).
It is good idea to go to any good data recovery company, like Actionfront.

_________________
DataRecovery.bg

Hi,
I Would Say Try Flashing The Firmware With HDD Repair Ver 1.1 .You Could Also Try Software Solutions From Salvation Data And Other Like Pc-3000 .If You Are Just a User Find Someone Who Could Do That For You

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

That's the trick! Finding an AFFORDABLE way to fix it. Data recovery companies must not like to work too much with the prices they charge. It's not that what I have on the drive is especially valuable, it's the time it'd take to replace it.

Strange U think DR companies don't want to work much for their money for 2 reasons:
1. apparently U don't have the faintest idea about how many work hours they have to invest apart from the money they invested,
2. for me it seems that U don't want to work/invest time to replace the drive.

Please take a few minutes of thinking before U say something about something U haven't the faintest idea about!

regards,
pepe

Companies that make data recovery software charge a small fortune for it.
Companies that make data recovery hardware charge a small fortune for it.
Companies that use those pass the huge costs on to the people with data they want saved from bad hard drives.

The result is there's a lot of people who have data they want saved who don't get it done due to the super high costs!

Many more recovery jobs would happen if everyone from end to end of the data recovery business didn't charge so much. They all want to make a big fortune from a few customers.

Hi bizzybody,

Interesting...

Data recovery software costs form a relatively small part of the costs
of a data recovery business.

The time for actual data recovery work is not the major component.

The cost of obtaining knowledge, resources and experience as far and away the most important cost component for a DR business.

Actually, there's a lot more people who lose their data when they don't take their drive to a DR company.

Yup, they lose their data, or just toss the drive in the trash because they decide that while it may be worth some amount of money, it's not worth $250, $500 or more. In the research I've done since this drive went wonky, I've found a lot of places wanting around $200 NON REFUNDABLE just to *look at* a drive to see if it may be possible to recover the data.

Unless the data is absolutely irreplacable, needed for a criminal investigation, or a project that'd bring in a lot of money was riding on recovering data from a drive (and it'd take too long to recreate it), most people will not spend the money to have recovery done.

It'd really be nice if some people would rip some firmware from the Millennium series of Maxtor drives. I wonder why there's none out there on the net?

Hi bizzybody,

No, they lose their data when they take their drive to someone like you
and then after that they go to a DR company who will ask if someone like you has :



They really want their data, they quite happy to pay, but unfortunately it becomes very expensive to figure out what people like you have done
to the drive and the very valuable data.

Heaven help the drive if you start throwing some hddrepair at it.
That's when asking $200 to look at the drive is peanuts.

I have 23 years experience with PCs and in that time I've only ruined THREE pieces of PC hardware. Two were obsolete* motherboards that I flashed the wrong BIOS to and the last was my own silly fault for working on my PC at about 4 in the morning and I plugged the power button connector into the IDE activity LED pins on the motherboard.

Don't do that. The power supply took about 30 seconds to go *BANG* with a pretty blue flash and a curl of smoke out the back. Nothing else was damaged.

*Ones I'd pulled from clients' PCs for upgrades. I NEVER take risks with client's hardware, I save that for my own stuff.

I research and follow the directions step by step, after reading them several times.

P.S. I do use a slightly magnetic screwdriver because it's a PITA getting some of those motherboard screws in. It's total BS that a magnetic screwdriver that can just hold onto a screw can cause any problems in computer hardware that has no electricity running through it.

The absolute funniest service call I had was when a customer brought in his office PC because it was doing random weird stuff. He'd brought it in before I got to the shop and the boss just told me to look at the box on the counter in the back. I took one look and burst out laughing. The entire side of the case was covered with magnetic business cards. The 'service' consisted of removing the cards then booting up and doing some basic tests. No charge and a quick lesson in why sticking magnets all over a PC wasn't a good idea.