Hi There,

I am still trying to diagnose my HDD. From my last post ( http://forum.hddguru.com/seagate-barracuda-7200-300gb-need-help-t10260.html ) it appears that an RS232 terminal log might help figure out what the problem is. I soldered up a MAX232 chip and a few caps on a little kit. Now I just need to figure out which pins need to be connected up. Can anyone help me out with this. I searched previous posts but mostly found the connections for an IDE drive not for a SATA drive.

It was also suggested that I would be in over my head to try to recover the data. If so does anyone have a recommendation for a Pro who may be able to do this for me. What would be a reasonable rate for recovering way less than 100GB of data on a 300GB drive?
Thanks

I would think thats you should be safe with anyone from this forum with a good reptation or number of posts made by that person.



It doesn't matter how many people will ride in a car, price for a car would be the same.
Price will depend on a difficulty of the recovery, not on a amount of data you need to recover.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

I posted an article about using a couple of off the shelf parts to connect to Seagates.

Guess where I linked to that article? IN YOUR ORIGINAL THREAD! I suggest you read it. I covered both PATA and SATA.

There's only four pins to choose from. That's a pretty limited number of combinations to try, especially when you consider that the two that you want are probably right next to each other.

Bonus hint: Don't try to connect your +5V line to anything on a sata drive.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Its not like I didnt read your post wiseleo. Its that I didnt understand it. You are using HDD guru speak, and so with me not being a Guru, this:



means nothing to me. If you can explain what you mean it would be far more helpful than the all caps sarcasm. I love how you guys act like everyone who asks for help in your forum needs to be treated with condescension. I read your post. I appreciate the help, but honestly, I could do without the smart ass comments assuming everyone should know what you took years to figure out.

Thanks for the bonus hints drccsc, but instead of making me guess and risk screwing up my drive further, wouldn't it be more helpful if you say, take your SATA drive and if you look at it with the power connection to the left and the data connection to the right, the TX pin is #x and the RX pin is #y the GND pin is #z counting from left to right.
You should remember that you weren't born with this knowledge. At some point you had to learn it yourself. If you were made to feel like an idiot when you learned this then I guess then you are just passing on your hard earned lessons. If not then quit being a-holes and just be helpful!
THANKS IN ADVANCE for all of the help!

So putting those two posts together, can i safely assume that what wiseleo's diagram means is that the tx pin is #4 and Rx pin is #3 (if you count as I described above)?

Will I need a 5V source to power the RS232 to TTL converter or does the COM port itself power it up? I assume from READING wiseleo's post that I will need a separate 5V source. drccsc says dont connect 5v to anything on the drive, I do want to hook up the GND together right?

Then when I finally get to hooking it up and running a terminal program, I believe I read that the order you power up in matters. So I think it was like so:
1) make connections with HD powered off
2) run terminal program on PC
3) turn on HDD
4) save the data dump and post it back on this forum for you to tell me what it means.
is that about right?

Sarcasm? No. Creating new threads instead of reviving old threads indicates that the person potentially did not realize they were provided with valid advice. Your thread here indicated that you did not see what I wrote and you never requested an explanation.

The article is written in a way that people who know what they are doing when it comes to connecting to serial port peripherals, generally computer consultants, can understand it. If that's foreign language to you, then the rest will be far more "fun:. My diagram could not be clearer. In fact, I wished I had seen a diagram this clear before, which is why I wrote it. Look at the drive and position its interfaces as I diagrammed them. It will make sense.

I used an older USB accessory to get my 5V to my board. You may use whichever source of 5V that makes sense to you.

You only need R and T pins connected to the drive. I don't bother with ground pins.

In any case, after you get the log, what do you expect ? Even if - le'ts suppose - there are problems in the SA, what do you expect ? To be guided and maybe connect in remote mode to your desktop to put the hands on your drive? If these are your intentions, well... expectations and solutions are different things. If you want to teach yourself something and see what comes out from the drive serial port, you're on the way.

How could you say that when I was referencing your advice about the terminal log and posted a link to the old thread? I didnt think starting a new thread would be a bad thing. It was a different subject, so a new thread seemed appropriate. When I search the forums having a nice clear & specific subject really helps finding what you need. I tried searching on RS232, SATA,connections, 7200.9 and all sorts of combinations and couldnt find what I was looking for. I found the page where a schematic is posted and one with a picture of the RS232 connections, that was pretty cool, but it was for IDE. In any case, like I said in my last post I appreciate the help. But in reading a lot of those posts I read a lot of sarcasm too.

In that you are 100% correct. I should have asked for clarification! My bad.

I guess my expectation was to know a little better what the problem might be so that hopefully one of you guys out there can give me a reasonable estimate for what it would cost....how long the car ride would be So I can decide how important the data on the drive is to me right now. Right now I have no idea whether its a $100 problem or a $1000 problem. If its too expensive I might try holding on to it until I have some cash and can pay for DR.
Once I saw it was beyond unsoldering diodes or replacing a PCB assembly, I know its beyond my knowledge. I can certainly be taught, but I wouldnt expect that from you all. Mostly I was looking for knowledgeable advice and maybe a volunteer or two (in north america) to fix the problem for me...for a fee of course.

Here's the issue. You're wanting everyone to just come straight out and tell you specifically step by step what to do. If you want that, then here it is:

1. Stop messing with your broken hard drive.
2. If the data is important, send it to a professional data recovery engineer or firm.
3. If the data is not important, throw it away (or recycle it!).

If, however, you want to tinker with it against the advice of everyone here, then we might give you hints and tips to poke you in the correct direction, but we are not going to give away answers and procedures that we use every day to put food on our plates.

All of the information regarding the serial port is here in the forums and elsewhere on the internet. If you want to tinker, then you should be prepared to invest some time and energy into learning about it, and not expect anyone to tell you exactly what to do (especially when you could find that information yourself with about five minutes and google).

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

p.s. if no one told you, a wrong command and .... poof ! you have a wonderful barracuda paperweight in seconds.

You have to figure this out for yourself.
We won't be able to help you evaluate your data.

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www.datarecoveryne.com

LOL so true and it's just to bad that we can't really get a "POOF" when it happens! That would be awesome.

Yeah, no sarcasm there right! So far I dont recall anyone saying dont mess with it. I'm not trying to take food out of your babies' mouths, I am merely trying to get a better estimate as to how much it would cost to do the DR. If you actually read my post, I AM asking for professional help. I know its beyond my knowledge to fix it...what I am trying to accomplish is to get a better idea of what may be wrong so I can get a more accurate estimate as to how much it will cost (a pro) to fix it. I am not asking you or harddrivespecialist to decide whether the data is important, I am asking you all to help me put boundary conditions on the cost so I (NOT YOU) can make the decision about whether or not I can currently afford it.

Again I am not asking to be spoonfed the solution to my problem. I am merely trying to give the specialists more information on what the problem may be so I can get a better estimate and then decide what my next step should be. As of now the only estimate I have is from Seagate's data recovery company, which is way too expensive for me. Sorry if I am trying to save a buck or two thousand by consulting with the forum. Believe me the last thing I want to do is spend months/years learning your craft. I would much rather pay someone to do it for me, however in all of these posts the only volunteer has been someone in China whom I have a language barrier with so I cant exactly understand him and I am a little uncomfortable sending my HDD off to China when the guy wont even issue me an official quote and when neither of us seems to understand what the other one is saying.

So in short, I dont want step by step directions on how to fix the problem, I understand it is complex. I would like to get an estimate on DR. In order to get a good ballpark figure, I figured the RS232 data dump would be helpful, at least thats what the replies to the original thread seemed to imply. So I've probably pissed you all off so much that I probably will be charged double at this point. I hope not.

A reasonable quote would be 1000 up to 2500$ including a new hdd as a carrier. 1 byte or whole hdd. Or it's better to say I can afford max. 'x' $ , will someone do everything for that price? Also, diagnose will be performed the same, you won't save 50% by posting a terminal log. Can't be more clear. Now decide.

It will still be cheaper that having a new hot water boiler fitted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or having your car engine replaced.. OR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD

DATA RECOVERY IS CHEAP COMPARED TO OTHER "SO CALLED" SERVICES !!!!


Do you think it costs a plumber 10,000 USD for a wrench?

Do you think it costs 500 USD for a screw replacement device?


LOL I think now...If you want to do it yourself you are probably the kind of people who have fked cars and your houses are DIY disasters!

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

BlackST..Thanks yes. couldn't be clearer. I am surprised that the minimum is that high. I guess the China option is beginning to look better and better. I could probably afford $250-300 and I could supply the new drive. I'd really prefer to keep it domestic though or at least within the US Canada & Mexico. Again I wasn't expecting to save 50% by posting the terminal log, I was hoping to get a clearer picture of what is wrong so it can be narrowed from the $1000-2000 range to something a bit more specific. Again I am just going by what I have read in this and quite a few other threads I have read on this forum. If that cant be accomplished then of course, I am barking up the wrong tree. I just didnt want to have to send it to someone to find out I cant afford their services.

Guru..I'm not sure what part of the cosmos you live in but here I can do just about every example you called out for less than $1000. Depending on the engine block of course, but something like a 22R engine, easily under $1000. And unless a hot water boiler is different than a hot water heater heck for $1000 you can do one of those fancy hot water on demand systems. Screw replacement device funny! You must work for the government, only there can you buy a screwdriver for $500.

Though it was a little aggressive, IMO, I think guru's point was that our industry's tools are very pricey and it's a little upsetting that no one wants to pay for the service of a professional but will ask a pro for help. That's the way the world works though. I don't want to pay outrageous amounts to get my car fixed but I do because they are the people who know what they're doing and I don't. I'm sure there are many foreign auto mechanics that can give us some outrageous price for the cost of a tool that is specific to a model, etc. I remember when only the top mechanics had the little diagnostic computers that attached to your car and told them what was wrong. Now I see advertisements for them at 19.95; much like our industry will become I'm sure.

I think of it like gas prices basically. They charge what it costs them, plus profit, plus whatever the guy down the road is charging. The difference is knowledge in our instance. Maybe not the best analogy but overall I think you took his statements literally.

All you can really do at this point, IMO, is what you've done: Post what you can afford and see if anybody will do it for that price.

And everyone who has ever worked for the government knows you can't get a screwdriver for anything less the 1K!

Hmmm just having some problems with builders LOL need let off some steam.. Just when you have been doing data recovery as long as me you get p1ssed with some customers who think your over charging them :O(

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

I understand what you're saying. Go ask a mechanic if he'd tell you how to change the timing in your car for free or a plumber how to adjust the water pressure in your house so that the utility room gets the correct pressure. They're not gonna want to tell you for free even though it's not that complicated. They've purchased special equipment to measure and adjust and their livelihood depends on it. Now ask them where you can dump the oil you've already taken out of your car and they might be happy to tell you.

As far as pricing, the original poster has told us what the data is worth to him. If we get desperate enough, economy what it is, we might take him up on the offer.

Maybe we should just start a webpage like priceline:
Data recovery companies get rated by customer experience (among other things)
Customer names what data is worth to them
Data recovery companies with the better rankings will charge more
Data recovery companies with the lessor rankings will charge less

THEN we'll be able to show the world's "uninitiated" what a real data recovery should cost by a reputable company.