Hello to everyone. As a brief introduction to myself, I'm a systems analyst and no HDD guru at all (=noob). I do provide tech support to users often, and this time a coworker's personal computer broke down, her hard drive isn't accessible but you can see it on the BIOS setup as a Calypso. All I've found about this issue points me to firmware failure.

Since I have no pro tools such as PC3000 or Salvation Data, and have no other similar unit at hand to swap the HD electronics, I was wondering if I could just flash it to rebuild its firmware and get the data out.

If the answer is NO, I guess I'll have to scavenge the electronics on some local computer workshop. If YES:

1. Can I use a Maxtor upgrade firmware to do this?
2. I've found a ton of memory images for this HD model, but I can't find a piece of software that would let me use them, other than PC3000. Do you know of any such software?
3. Would MHDD allow me to recover this data? If so, is anyone willing to share info about this particular tool and HDD? (I'm in Nicaragua, so I won't be your competition at all... ) I've been reading MHDD's docs briefly, and if it will allow me to recover this info, I'm willing to spend serious time learning how to.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Hello,

First of all, this is not a simple cell phone, this firmware is in more location, the most is in the platters, so you can't simple "flash" it.

The issue, what you have described, can be from more reasons:
1. head problem
2. spindle bearing problem
3. pcb problem
4. SA corruption or unreadable sectors in SA.

You can't fix it yourself.

If you are more interested, take a look @ here:

results-the-yourself-solutions-t11912.html

This is for noobs.

Regards,
Janos

Thanks anyways Janos, it is always worth trying.

I've been searching hi-and-lo for a way to recover this data and the more I looked into it, the more I've realized it wasn't such an easy task.

So, I guess she has a nice square paper weight!

Anyway, asking some pro near you, never a kind of bad step!
If you are lucky, the problem is not too deep, and the price is not so high....

For example, yesterday i have fixed this model for about 70 EUR, with a similar issue.

Regards,
Janos

That's the reason why I've been looking for a DIY solution, because here aren't any HDD recovery providers, data wasn't THAT critical, and I know for sure that she rather buy a new one instead.

Maybe a forum member is nearby and could drop me a msg, I could ask her if she would be willing to pay for it.

Ask beto.
He is not online at the moment, but if i have right, he works in Mexico.

Janos

If u HDD its showing the following "syntomph´s"

1.- Reach readiness, when u tried to read sectors show u "ABRT" ATA registers not knocks, and show the "Maxtor alias code" , then could be SA problems like the hddguru´s told u , by this reason its showing only the factory alias code because the Engineering its only able to access microcode from MCU, and doesn link to the SA zone.


Regards