So pissed right now

[Zach]

I just lost about 1TB of ROMS, ISOs, etc...

Fucking POS Seagate bricked on me and all I did was turn the computer off then turn it on the next day..

Goddamn SD15 Firmware!! Fucking killed the drive before I could update it...


URGH :fuckyou:

[ulaoulao]

Oh man, I feel your pain. I'm not trying to give you any false hope here as I dont know your level of skill nor what happened. but I have fixed many of HD's in my day. including two rom disasters. Was it an ext or internal? fat32 or ntfs ?

[Zach]

It's an internal.

Its nothing I can do to be fixed, short of getting hold of a new PCB and trying to replace it.

The actual data is intact, but the drive is inaccessible, and will not communicate with any PC I've tried to connect it to. It still spins up, does a self-check, etc..

[ulaoulao]

Well I like this app
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/
It wil let you in to a drive even if the firmware is shot and attempt to fix it. You really need to know what you are doing, but its a good last chance fix. There are a lot of help forums out there for mhdd, if you run in to dimitri he knows all.

If it does not see the data then you are truly sol. If it does, Dimiti may know how to get it off. but you would certainly need something to copy it to.


I had a drive fail once like that and I tried to repair the board, needless to say the new board didn't fix it.

[Zach]

The problem is.. The PC cannot see the drive.. Even if its plugged in it looks like. the detection routine will hang/timeout and then proceed on. If you try to boot windows or anything it will be terribly slow until you unplug the drive.

would this utility be able to do anything with that?

[ulaoulao]

Well what your describing is a bad sector on the Boot record or maybe even deeper. And yes it can fix that. It may need a low level reconstruction. This utility will do that but you need the drive details it will ask for.

mhdd is a bit hard to follow as its very technical. Its not windows gui app LOL;)

I also think it will back up( drive info ) what you have first, if you tell it to.

[Zach]

Honestly didn't expect it to work. So not too dissapointed, but I did give it a try.

No matter what port I tried (out of the 3 that were listed) it just gave me "drive not ready" responses. It was the only drive hooked up to the mobo except for the CD I booted it from. I just unplugged the cables from my other drives but left those cables into the mobo, which I'm guessing is why I got 3 options in the port list..

But either way I tried all ports listed, and nothing but Drive Not Ready.

I just think the firmware has borked the comm board and it either can't communicate anymore, or doesn't know how. I probably wouldn't have lost the drive if I had updated the firmware when I had downloaded it, but I waited and then forgot about it until one day I turn off the PC, turn it on the next, and the drive isn't there anymore..

Even people who so much as reboot Windows have had this happen. It was a big bug with the firmware.

[ulaoulao]

Yup I agree its a bad controller then, sucks man, but was worth a try. If you get an exact match of that controller board it way work like new once again.

[cibomatto2002]

That may sound crazy but do you have another computer that you can put it on it may work who knows.

Can you uninstall the drive then let windows find it again ?

Also can you get the old firmware and try to flash it ?

[Zach]

I don't think you understand..

The controller board is fudged.. It's not that Windows can't see it, its that it can't communicate with the computer period. The BIOS doesn't even detect it. So you can't flash the firmware or anything.

As Ula said, the only solution is either to try replacing the PCB myself (which is beyond my skill since it likely involved precision soldering) or to RMA it and get a new drive as a replacement..

Which isn't even new according to Seagate.. They send refurbs as replacements :dry:

[ulaoulao]

(which is beyond my skill since it likely involved precision soldering) or to RMA it and get a new drive as a replacement.. - You would be surprised. I can say as therr are many kind of drives out there, Normal its a few screws and a funky connector for the cable cable. It certainly is work a shot.

[Zach]

Actually yeah it does look like a slide in connector. Just the solder joints on the connector where it physically connects to the drive is exposed so I figured I'd have to solder it..


Wouldn't know how to go about getting a PCB for cheap, or even making sure I got the correct one though..

[cibomatto2002]

I'm slow I understand now :msn_tongu

[ulaoulao]

what is the exact sn, and model number to the drive?

You could try searching google for it, or a bad drive on ebay, or email the company.

[Zach]

Well I did e-mail Seagate. You have to RMA it to get a replacement drive.

Honestly its nothing I can't download again... but my UG ratio... oh god, my poor UG ratio.. It's gonna be some slow downloading, lol.

Barracuda 7200.11
ST31000340AS
P/N: 9BX158-303

[cloud4004]

Maybe you should start backing up your roms online?

[ulaoulao]

Here are some boards

http://www.ioffer.com/i/PCB-for-ST31000340AS-9BX158-100-Firmware-LC11-WUXISG-108402109




Maybe you can snag up one of theses

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-Barracuda-7200-11-1-0TB-1000GB-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ270438378869QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_ Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item3ef7622d75&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14


http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-Barracuda-7200-11-1-0TB-1000GB-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ270438378865QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_ Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item3ef7622d71&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

not sure what your fimW version is but here are 2 for 60

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-ST31000340AS-7200-11-1TB-1-tb-SATA-hard-drive-2_W0QQitemZ130322774987QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Driv es_Storage_Internal?hash=item1e57d7bbcb&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14


Maybe you should start backing up your roms online? - And how is anyone going to back up 1tb of data on line? That is without paying too much for reasonable up and down.

[cloud4004]

- And how is anyone going to back up 1tb of data on line? That is without paying too much for reasonable up and down.

I don't know what resources he has or what he would be willing to invest in. I just know from my experience backing things up online has been a lot more solid than throwing my files on an external hd.

[Zach]

If money or resources weren't an issue, I'd just build a 10TB RAID 1 array. Obviously.

Backing up online is too much.. especially with an upload reasonably capped at 50 - 100Kb/sec

[TchuBacha]

Techinically Zach already has all his roms backed-up online. Its just a pain-in-the-arse to find them sometimes. :p

[Mupen64 Man]

Dude, that fricken sucks. My 16 Gigabyte Flashdrive went faulty this week and it had things that i don't have on my normal computer, and I could not get off the info. thats 14.7 gigs worth of valuable memory, :(

[Dude111]

Im sorry to hear that Zach :(

Is it possible to open the drive and get the disk out and place it in another drive?

[Zach]

No, you'd need another identical drive to do that and doing that without a clean room is really dangerous as the smallest spec of dust can screw up the data on the platters.

[ulaoulao]

Plus the are vacuum sealed. Data recover shops do this, but charge more then its wort, as the got you by the bits ( pun intended )h..