START HERE IF YOU HAVE A DRIVE THAT WON'T BOOT AND ISN'T SHOWING UP AT THE LOAD SCREEN THIS IS KNOWN AS BRICKED AND THIS THREAD WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF HEAD SCRATCHING AND SEARCHING, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DIY FIX THE DRIVE AT THIS TIME, NO PROGRAMS OR UTILITIES WILL HELP BECAUSE AN UNREADABLE DRIVE CANNOT BE SEEN BY ANYTHING, IF YOU CHOOSE TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK, NEITHER I NOR SEAGATE WILL ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU KILL YOUR DRIVE FOR GOOD ATTEMPTING THIS CURE, SEAGATE DOES NOT RECOMMEND THIS FIX, IT IS AN UNOFFICIAL FIX CREATED BY VERY CLEVER PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF AND NOT AFFILIATED TO SEAGATE , I ALSO TAKE NO CREDIT FOR THE FIX AS I SIMPLY DID WHAT I READ AND IT WORKED.
Well today had it's trials I can tell you but I got there in the end, all started off using the wrong cable to open up to the terminal, I had a later cable that was simply just a cable, so I set off to the phone shop guy and bought for £5 a Nokia CA42 cable, if you get one ask the shop to plug it in to make sure it gets recognised by Windows PNP, if it doesn't it won't work and you will like I waste hours on it, anyway this is to share my experience because it's not all plain sailing and some of the web instructions can be vague and confusing to say the least, so after setting up the cable and finding which ones did what once I'd cut the end off I was ready to go ( I believe this will be deleted if I say how exactly) so I won't put direct links in unless a mod says it's ok in a later post, but think of it this way, everyone who feels able to do it has saved Seagate two postage fees minimum, add that up and see which way you feel is best.
So I get into the hyperterminal using Putty because I'm on Vista and my XP was on the striking drive, so I put in the commands one by one slowly double checking everytime before hitting enter, I finally finish the ten commandment's and disconnect the drive, power down the main drive and swap my Maxtor 500 in as the boot drive, up she comes in the bios and I'm a happy bunny, I then flash to the new firmware MX1A and wait for the power cycle instruction, reboot and it all goes wrong LBA0 thank you very much, so I spend the next few hours tracing back and getting nowhere, reflashing isn't optional as it's already there and the flash sees it straightaway, finally I'm about to give up and call it a day and I think what if I don't put the commands in terminal this time and just put the line m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22 in and it reformats the partitions for you, not the data just the boot up partition, disconnect's throws it into my docking station and wrirr whirr activity light and Windows do doot sound and all is working again, not need to RMA it no need to worry if my data is gonna get a cloth over it no need to worry my pictures and numbers will fall into the wrong hands.
A word of warning though, you need a steady hand and at least a basic understanding of electronics to be able to do it.
Parts were
CA42 cable £5
T6 Screwdriver ? I borrowed one
CDrom patch lead 4pin unit to MB one.
Insulating tape.
The procedure is cut the phone end off the cable, spread the 6 wires and strip the coating off green,white and red, the yellow,blue and orange ones aren't required, break the plastic ends off the CD patch cable taking care not to break the pins inside at one end because these are needed to hook to the drive, insulate the green one at the very least with the tape, join the other end up to the CA42, you will need to put the white wire on the pin nearest the sata connector, and the green one on the next pin and the red one on the third pin which is ground, assuming you've already loaded the CA42 driver you can then plug the USB end of the CA42 in to your computer, you should now have a full connection between the drive and the computer in the Hyperterminal, this is the basic 1st steps, I won't post anymore until the mods say it's ok to, as at this stage I believe you can do no damage as long as the Sata and power cable isn't connected, Sata cable plays no part in the fix btw, so don't even think about plugging it in, more to follow if I get the ok.
Finally, this isn't my work, this is other's whose post's I've studied for the last 24 hours, so I take no credit for the fix, I just wanted you to know it isn't a hard task and it could save everyone a whole lot of data and money at both ends, and finally I'd like to say a big thankyou to all at MSFM for the guidance, especially three in particular whose post's gave me the bottle to attempt the fix, Gradius being one of them.
Message Edited by Cantbecanit on 10-29-2009 01:01 AM
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DOING ANYTHING I HAVE SUGGESTED IS AT YOUR OWN RISK, NEITHER I NOR SEAGATE TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY, IT'S YOUR CHOICE TO DO WHAT YOU FEEL IS BEST FOR YOU
