Hello,

I have got a Hitachi 2,5" 20 GB old drive from my laptop. It was working normally and suddenly windows crashed (blescreen ect). Later then it wasn't recognized by bios. I've decided to attach it to an usb/ide adapter on linux and it started to function but while I tried to copy the data from it, I've got an I/O error and nothing could be done. Now it is seen (through that usb controller) as a ~ 1600 GB disk (not recognized by bios or anything. I can just plug it through the usb adapter and in testdisk utility it is reported as Generic Usb Disk with 1600 GB capacity). Unfortunately I don't have almost any info about that disk because it was bought from a second-hand market with almost no labels on it.
I believe that it could be a firmware corruption. The motor spins, the disk tries to read the needed info and after 2-3 seconds it just stops. The heads look intact. So is the surface of the disk.
I was wondering if buying a 2,5" to 3,5" adapter and plugging the disk to the IDE channel, and running mhdd would help to diagnose what's the problem. Furthermore is there some kind of a serial interface like those for seagate drives for hitachi ones? And the last question, is there a way to get to hitachi SA without pc3000?
Thanks for any help.
Regards
Tom

Hi Tom,

I'm afraid that without pc3000 there is nothing that can be done.

Dobre

Hi Dobre,

I got the adapter today and tried to connect the drive to the first ide channel and run mhdd. It didn't recognize the drive but I choose the first channel and the following flags lit up:
ERR DREQ DRESC DRDY.
Then I tried the reset command and here's what it gave:
DRSC DRDY TONF
Device not ready.
Then the ID command:
ERR DREQ DRSC DRDY ABRT
Device not ready.
I was thinking if the famed pc3000 v14 software could work on this drive and do anything. (it's trash anyway so I can do whatever I want with it - maybe I'll learn something )
Thanks for help and ideas.

Tom

P.S. Maybe some of you could help me identify which drive really is it.
It's got some numbers on the PCB side.
First on the pcb there is a label with the numbers:
07N5445
F80181A
L38117
C3Y2

And another sticker on the pcb:
118298L
ASSEMBLY MADE IN PHILIPPINES

And the last label not on the pcb but next to it:
07N7702
228
1184
R10
Those numbers are located on 4 sides of a little black square, read clockwise.
Maybe somewhone will recognize which model is it or even have firmware to it.
Thanks for help and sorry for bugging you all the time.

Tom

Yeah you're right. Without knowledge and the right soft I'd mess up things worse. But maybe in a couple of months I'll be able to afford one.
Thanks anyway.