Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[Sonnema]

Hi there,

Since last week my hard drive is not detected anymore by my pc. Not in Windows and not in the BIOS. Lucky as i am i have another identical hard drive. That one still works fine. I have an external hard drive bay (e-sata/usb) that i have connected to the pc. So its very easy to do some tests.

When i turn the hard drive it on (with the external bay through usb) the hard drive spins, no ticks or anything. I hear the usb connection sound on the pc, but after that nothing. So after some searchwork i found this site and followed the steps in this topic (very intersting topic by the way). I thougth it could be the 12V TVS diode. But i measured it with a multi meter and that don't seems to be the problem.

I also tried to switch the PCB's, but then the discs are giving a ticking sound. Thats because each drive is calibrated at the factory. This data is stored in the EEPROM. So the next step would be to switch the EEPROM from the PCB's, but i have to let it do by an expert. I don't dare that by myself. But is this the right thing to do now? Have i forgotten anything?

By the way. The PCB looks fine, no burning places or what so ever. So is it likely that i'm searching in the right direction?

Your help would be appreciated.

[fzabkar]

It appears that your drive may have fallen victim to the 7200.11 BSY bug.

See this thread for a DIY fix:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&message.id=18467#M18467

See the following bulletin for an explanation of the BSY bug.

Urgent Field Update. Topic: Drive Hang after Power Cycle:
http://www.expreview.com/img/topic/seagate_firmware/1-16_KB11_Barracuda_Field_Update.pdf

[Sonnema]

Thanks fzabkar!

I think that will be the problem. I have been reading a lot of topics tonight.

I found an old Nokia usb cable in my box with a lot of cables. So i wanted to try that one to make the connection with the hard drive. But after stripping of the cable i found out that the usb cable that i wanted to use won't work. I have the Nokia CA-53 cable. It should be the CA-42 or the DKU-5. They seem the same, but the are not. To bad for me.

So enough for tonight. I will ask some friends if the have the right cable. Or i will by one or buy a RS232 connector.

Thanks for now!

[Sonnema]

Today I bought a new CA-42 cable in a local gsm store. So when i came home i opent it up. Well it was more cutting it open. Find out that it was a wrong cable again. This time it was an CA-42 like it should be, but made in Thailand and not in China as it should be. The cables look the same, but they are not. So I again could not connect.

More about the china and thailand cable: Link

So now I'm again looking for a new cable.

[fzabkar]

I haven't tried this cable, but I can't see why it shouldn't work.

Prolific USB to TTL Logic Cable (US$10):
http://www.serialstuff.com/products/Prolific-USB-to-TTL-Logic-Cable.html