Hello,

Thank you for looking, I am pleased to have access to this knowledgable forum.

I have a Maxtor drive that was no longer seen by windows. I can get the drive somewhat recognized in BIOS if set to auto, the first POST screen shows MAXTOR, however the second screen shows no drive present with other drives.

The Maxtor utility gave a fatal code - 02e00 ffffff94 ffffff b4100. A few utils show that all sectors are not readible.

Many diag utilities show this drive as a Maxtor AresC4. The BIOS wants to set this to 1024 Cyl and 255 heads, which is not the geometry of this drive. (thus sectors not readable)

I tried on 3 diff MB to set manually set the paramaters, was not successful.

I used all the utils on Ultimate BOOT CD, Hirens BOOT CD and the Pirate Mini XT PE.

The drive spins ok, no clanking noises, just a hot controller chip.


I would like opinion please, if you think this firmware can be flashed, or if replacing the controller board with like kind may salvage?

Finally, I see where to download firmware - but feel I am missing the procedure . . can you please clarify?

http://www.salvationdata.com/view/produ ... p?pn=00007 ???



http://files.hddguru.com/index.php?PHPS ... ory=MAXTOR


SPECS ARE"

E-H011-02-3056
Date: 13aug2002
made in singapore
Fireball 3
ATA/133 HDD
30 GB
LBA: 60058656
2F030j0110211
AAA
F10XPNLE
Code: VAM51JJ0
3.5 series


Thank you for your time and assistance!




.

Hi Id10T_Error,

Typical fault for this drive.
If you need the data probably it can be retrieved.

If data is not important - best to dump it.

The "Free" SalvationData download cannot fix this drive.
There is no such program to "Update firmware" as found with
main board BIOS.
Changing pcb - in this case - probably will not help.
Programs like pc3000 can be used to repair this drive.
The files at hddguru are for use with pc3000 - mostly.

I very much appreciate your help.

I am confused though, if one can not update the firware, why is there the directory showing all the Maxtor firmwares?

It seems the PC3000 is an expensive option . . . requiring both a hardware and software solution, have I gotten it all wrong?

Thanks again!

In can be confusing - in many cases the files are actually of no use.
They could be useful for research or testing purposes because most
of the content is unique to a specific drive - this applies to all drives.

Ahhhh . . so do you think it is possible to get some *cough* used version of a software or card to savlage this data?





.

Ahhh.... so you need the data....

Is this your personal drive ?

Its actually from another country. I asked them to ship it to the USA to me, as I thought I stood a better chance of recovery then they would there. The data is important to them, so I am committed to help them, however I am not in a position to put out much $$.

I am willing to buy a replacement drive if it like $25 though.


.

I can see that you don't want to put out much $$.
Is the owner of the data prepared to put out some more $$ ?

Maybe invite the owner of the data to this forum

btw. I'm too far from USA - but I do know there some real experts in Canada

Yep... I would definitely recommend to use http://ActionFront.com

This one is NOT an easy one...

Hi,

I like these Ares types good money.

pepe

One of the utils I ran gave lots of indepth info about the drive, but also gave the following:

BIOS extension support = failed

Max LBA - 80295529 / CHS current = 16514064

BIOS 0 0 0 0 0 0kb


When I plug this in to a removable USB adapter it shows up as a removeable device, but not addressible.

Shows - Maxtor A RES 64K USB device <EXACTLY AS TYPED HERE> not ARES



Any thoughts?

Hi,

Let me tell U it is no matter where U plug this HDD, it is probably having FW related problems that will only be solved if an expert plugs it - onto some special HW/SW of course.
And runs some special diag SW and eliminates the current errors preventing your drive to show its correct model and reading the data surface.

pepe

In easy words u have a corrupted fw use pc3k .

Rameez is right, definatey FW problems. There is no way to get the data from this disk without PC3000. But you cannot repair this with PC3000 alone, you also need knowledge and experience. You should definately send this drive to a expert, someone who knows what they are doing.

if problem is connected with corrupted translator its possible to solve problem by hddrepair posted someday on this forum.

few weeks ago i helped my friend with exact same problem over a net (Windows terminal connection) I dont know why but over a vnc main window wasnt visible on remote machine (locally was visible) strange.

if u need the data and if u regenerate translator then u will not be able to get data .

I am with pepe on this one! regenerating the translator simply rewrites the defect tables with the correct values, and is sometimes the ONLY way to get data back

Regenerating translator, as the words say, only regenerates the translator, dont rewrites defects tables

Hi marlboroman,

take a good maxtor drive, write an others defects tables to it,
do this "regen thing" and then compare defect tables
before and after. (defect tables being factory and grown defects)

Use something like ultra compare and check all the "modules"
before and after "regen".

valuable exercise, but really only for windows version - latest.