Seagate Hard Drive Problem

Rhuey46 said:
I have considered this and have run scans on the RAM and mobo, they both come out fine, I have tried an IDE drive in there and that works, but I don't have any other SATA drives to try.

Unfortunately I don't have another PC with SATA, just my laptop. So I will either have to try it in another PC later or return it (which I'm a bit worried about - I got it from incredible connection, yes bad I know - but I had a voucher, I'm even scared to know their return policy :confused: They will probably charge me more than it cost to exchange).
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Try the low level format first. I used Ultimate Boot CD to do mine and it solved all of my problems. Make sure you remove all other drives before doing the low level format as a precaution.
 
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Rhuey46 said:
I have considered this and have run scans on the RAM and mobo, they both come out fine, I have tried an IDE drive in there and that works, but I don't have any other SATA drives to try.

Unfortunately I don't have another PC with SATA, just my laptop. So I will either have to try it in another PC later or return it (which I'm a bit worried about - I got it from incredible connection, yes bad I know - but I had a voucher, I'm even scared to know their return policy :confused: They will probably charge me more than it cost to exchange).
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IC can tell you who their supplier/importer was and then if you take it there it should be swopped. There's a 5 year warrantee on Seagate drives. Yours could be the dreaded firmware problem, easy to fix by just flashing the new repair firmware.
 
Rhuey46 said:
WOW!

I took in the hard drive and got it exchanged straight away, no questions asked. I was really impressed with incredible connection. :D
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Nice to hear. At least one thumb up for them. Now if we can just......
 
I am curious... I used to work on large (physically large HDD's) many years back and I know when you removed the heads the alignment went down the loo and you were not able to read the platter data until you re-aligned the heads using a CE pack and and a scope. By the same token, replacing the fixed platters would necessitate re-alignment as well as the index was taken from a fixed sensor on the drive spindle and the platter hub (assuming there was no seperate index written on a fixed platter on a multi platter drive.) There was also a temperature compensation issue to take into consideration. I am curious as to whether stuff like this still applies in newer drives, granted that the physical size of the drives, platters and heads is about 50 times smaller than it was when I was doing it, and as a consequence the margin for error is so much smaller.
And, more importantly, is it really worth all that effort?


I am Penguin said:
Why not, have you never tried anything adventurous? My data is lost and I need to recover it, if the platters are OK then Yeah its possible. If it fails I can at least say I tried. At least I have the brains and expertise to try it!
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OhGats said:
I am curious... I used to work on large (physically large HDD's) many years back and I know when you removed the heads the alignment went down the loo and you were not able to read the platter data until you re-aligned the heads using a CE pack and and a scope. By the same token, replacing the fixed platters would necessitate re-alignment as well as the index was taken from a fixed sensor on the drive spindle and the platter hub (assuming there was no seperate index written on a fixed platter on a multi platter drive.) There was also a temperature compensation issue to take into consideration. I am curious as to whether stuff like this still applies in newer drives, granted that the physical size of the drives, platters and heads is about 50 times smaller than it was when I was doing it, and as a consequence the margin for error is so much smaller.
And, more importantly, is it really worth all that effort?
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Well apparently the issue with multiple platters remains. You need a special clamp device to move them to another drive without disturbing the orientation between the platters. So moving platters unless it a single platter is a no go.

Replacing the head is apparently different as there do not seem to be an alignment issue. Sort of self calibration with info stored on the disk? That seems to be one of the major problems with these Seagate drives. The firmware corrupts these stored firmware data areas in some cases and the disk stops working. Before the latest Seagate firmware update there was hackers on MSN that released a procedure where you link the drive to a RS232 TTL circuit and then via a PC terminal restructure the drive firmware with specific commands to restore the drive fuctionality. That procedure is still valid if after the Seagate firmware update was implemented the drive remain defunct. In my case the Seagate firmware update does not work at all as it does not recognize the drive thus it seems I will have to follow the serial link procedure and if that fails assume either the heads are malfuctioning or the platters are damaged. No strange noise eminates from the drive as it starts smoothly and quietly so I suspect the heads as it did not fail in one instant. When I booted the system started XP and crashed with BSOD, then the bios detected the drive and froze. Then it stopped detecting the drive and a more prominent tick tick sound eminated as the heads seeked for ID information.

It's Interesting and steep learning curve. Is it really worth all that effort? I have no choice, I need to try and salvage my data. For now its lost.

But for most the latest standard Seagate firmware update procedure works fine. I just hope everyone updates before their drive fails.
 
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Interesting... I hope you had luck with your drive. I am amazed at how the technology of HDDS has become so much more complex, but I am also going to stay away from Seagate 500's for a loooong time.
 
He'll never post a "I replaced my HDD Heads Succesfully" Thread anytime soon, but hey, thats just my Opinion.
 
Keeper said:
He'll never post a "I replaced my HDD Heads Succesfully" Thread anytime soon, but hey, thats just my Opinion.
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I will post the result anyway. Succsess or fail. Still have not found a donor drive as yet. Why so anxious. Scared it would be a success? It's not to say that because others failed there will be no successes in future. Go surf the net and you would be very surprised. Its exactly that mindset and fear to take a chance and do anything, that kept Africa in the dark till today and will do so for ever more.
 
So ... how much can I get for a 500MB Seagate Barracuda now anyway?

R700.00 too much? Whats the new price?
 
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