What I'm trying to do is repair my Maxtor 40GB hard drive with a lot of music recorded on it from my brother's band. He didn't backup as often as I asked him, so he's barely paying me $100 to fix it.
* Name:Maxtor D540X-4D / Model: 4D040H2220311
* HDD Processor: Texas Instruments DSP
* Symptoms: OS not recognising hard drive after it crashed while being overloaded?, BIOS sees "MAXTOR ROMULUS", it spins OK and sounds good, but that is all.

From my research on its problem, I have come up with the following information:

* Problem: The firmware, part of which is located on the disk itself, is corrupt.
* Some say PC-3000 ($400 hardware solution) is the only way, some say Salvation-DATA ($400 software solution) will work; e.g. from their website:
http://www.salvationdata.com/images/products/PROGRAM-MODULE_MaxtorFR.jpg
I don't have $400, only $100 to fix this problem myself (unless I go into business with this )
* There is a tool called HDD Repair 2.0 or 1.1 that can do some stuff. I'm not sure what, though, because I can't find any documentation.
* bubu321 on a forum uploaded a corrupt-linked maxtor repair procedure that I can't use because half of it's gone:
http://big-forum.com/showthread.php?t=195
* I can put the drive in "safe mode" (which I'm not sure what is) by jumpering the first 2 sets of pins.
* I should plug in the drive after the BIOS screen so that it doesn't detect it when I'm fiddling with it.
* MHDD can detect some drive info no matter what but you have to be a pro to understand it.

Some people on this forum have said to others to "educate" themselves on this stuff, but where can I "educate myself"?

Can someone in this forum point me in the right direction or fix it or fill in my missing pieces of info?

UPDATE: I was just reading the big PC-3000 manual and now I'm scared shitless!

Google

Where are you based?

I'm based in CANADA, i.e. postal code V1Y 1J4

If anyone can fix this for $100 I'd be pleased!

My Maxtor drive showed up as MAXTOR SABRE which is the same symptom as yours. I had messed with the firmware but in the end I succeeded to do a proper re-flash and the drive was fine again.

Did you (or your brother) by any chance try to update the drive's firmware?

How did you do it, weaker?