What happened to my hard drive?

[mike]

Greetings to all you techies 'out there',

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

I was using Clonezilla to try to get a newly cloned XP system to boot
on a disk that previously had contained a few different partitions,
one of which had Ubuntu on it. I've used Clonezilla for this before
and it's worked flawlessly - but this time, on the reboot where the OS
is supposed to be initialized (or something), instead, rather than
offer the option to bypass the CD and boot from the hdd, it would go
back to starting up the install option of the XP CD;

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

Since Bios can't detect the drive I can't try recloning or even wiping
the drive so I can start over with it - any one have any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mikel

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 18 May 2011 07:03:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

40GB would make it a rather old drive. My guess(tm) is about 2002.
Check the label. Depending on operating conditions, that's probably
beyond the useful life of the drive. Incidentally, all 40GB Seagate
drives are not the same type. You might find it useful if you would
divulge the actual model number.

instead, rather than
offer the option to bypass the CD and boot from the hdd, it would go
back to starting up the install option of the XP CD;

That means that the BIOS didn't recognize the hard disk drive. That
could be anything from a trashed boot record, mangled partition table,
mutilated BIOS settings, goofy 3rd party boot manager, or a failed
drive. However, if it prevents anything else from working on the IDE
cable, then you have the IDE ribbon cable plugged in backwards.

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

I assume you tried to power it on/off, checked the cabling, and
offered sacrifice to the hard disk gods. If so, it's dead.

Since Bios can't detect the drive I can't try recloning or even wiping
the drive so I can start over with it - any one have any ideas?

Yep. The drive failed. I've had it happen to me while working on the
drive. No guess on exactly what is failing. Is it going kerlunk,
kerclunk, kerclunk, at about 1 second intervals on bootup?

Try Seatools and see if it finds anything:
<http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools>
It probably won't if the BIOS can't find it, but it's still possible.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[mike]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

40GB would make it a rather old drive. My guess(tm) is about 2002.
Check the label. Depending on operating conditions, that's probably
beyond the useful life of the drive. Incidentally, all 40GB Seagate
drives are not the same type. You might find it useful if you would
divulge the actual model number.

Yeah, it is kind of old, the S.M.A.R.T. info says it's beyond it's
useful life, and has been that way since I got it about 5 years ago -
it came from machine that got 'burnt up' when the neutral went bad at
my neighbor's house. Used it in my main machine until I got some
newer stuff about a year ago, and up until it turned into a brick I've
never had any problem with it. Since I started using the newer,
bigger capacity stuff, the 40Gb drive has just been kinda for
experiments and testing out new systems/component groups ( model # is
ST340810A ).

instead, rather than
offer the option to bypass the CD and boot from the hdd, it would go
back to starting up the install option of the XP CD;

That means that the BIOS didn't recognize the hard disk drive.

Or XP setup didn't recognize it, because it did show up correctly and
quickly on the startup screen as the
system booted

That could be anything from a trashed boot record, mangled partition table,
mutilated BIOS settings, goofy 3rd party boot manager, or a failed
drive.

I suspect I deleted a partition that I shouldn't have, didn't know
that was possible...

However, if it prevents anything else from working on the IDE
cable, then you have the IDE ribbon cable plugged in backwards.

No, that's not it, double checked, tried setting as master and slave
and CS ,
cables are type that can only be plugged in one way. BIOS just hangs
there trying to detect , doing nothing, drive makes no funny noises,
or even normal ones but you can tell by feeling that it's spinning .

I assume you tried to power it on/off, checked the cabling, and
offered sacrifice to the hard disk gods.

Oh, yeah, multiple iterations.

If so, it's dead.

Well darn, I was afraid of that, but was just hoping maybe there's a
program out there that lets a drive be manipulated even if the BIOS
had not detected it.

Yep. The drive failed. I've had it happen to me while working on the
drive. No guess on exactly what is failing. Is it going kerlunk,
kerclunk, kerclunk, at about 1 second intervals on bootup?

No, no funny noises - my guess is I deleted a partition I shouldn't
have (without doing something else also), but you could be right and
it just happened to finally fail.

Try Seatools and see if it finds anything:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
It probably won't if the BIOS can't find it, but it's still possible.

I tried a couple different versions of Seatools, I guess when the bios
doesn't see it, other programs can't either.
Thanks Jeff

Mike

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 18 May 2011 11:14:15 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

Yeah, it is kind of old, the S.M.A.R.T. info says it's beyond it's
useful life, and has been that way since I got it about 5 years ago -

What kills drives is turning them on and off repeatedly. I have
machines where the drive is running 24x7, and they last many years. I
have an ancient Conner 1GB 1060S drive running in my SCO Unix 3.2v4.2
server since about 1985 without difficulties.

( model # is ST340810A ).

I have a pile of those. They tend to have a short lifetime. I have
to dive into the paperwork to check the typical failure mode.

Or XP setup didn't recognize it, because it did show up correctly and
quickly on the startup screen as the
system booted

OK. The BIOS recognizes the drive, but Windoze does not. There's
a chance that the drive can be revived if you wipe it clean.

Try one of the numerous disk wipe type of programs.
<http://www.dban.org/about> (what I use)
<http://www.diskwipe.org>
Stuff in the Windoze XP CD and boot it. It should ask to partition
and format the disk. After it's done, it will install XP. Much
easier with a clean HD.

Try Seatools and see if it finds anything:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
It probably won't if the BIOS can't find it, but it's still possible.

I tried a couple different versions of Seatools, I guess when the bios
doesn't see it, other programs can't either.

Make up your mind please. When you go into the CMOS setup, does the
drive show up and is it correctly identified as an ST340810A drive? If
so, the BIOS sees it. If not, it's dead.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

 

[Meat Plow]

On Wed, 18 May 2011 08:43:54 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Wed, 18 May 2011 07:03:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to this
Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

40GB would make it a rather old drive. My guess(tm) is about 2002.
Check the label. Depending on operating conditions, that's probably
beyond the useful life of the drive. Incidentally, all 40GB Seagate
drives are not the same type. You might find it useful if you would
divulge the actual model number.

instead, rather than
offer the option to bypass the CD and boot from the hdd, it would go
back to starting up the install option of the XP CD;

That means that the BIOS didn't recognize the hard disk drive. That
could be anything from a trashed boot record, mangled partition table,
mutilated BIOS settings, goofy 3rd party boot manager, or a failed
drive. However, if it prevents anything else from working on the IDE
cable, then you have the IDE ribbon cable plugged in backwards.

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would fix
it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a brick,
since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents that channel
from detecting itself and any other device on that channel (jumpers set
to cable select), causing big time delay in boot while the BIOS trys and
fails to detect said items.

I assume you tried to power it on/off, checked the cabling, and offered
sacrifice to the hard disk gods. If so, it's dead.

Since Bios can't detect the drive I can't try recloning or even wiping
the drive so I can start over with it - any one have any ideas?

Yep. The drive failed. I've had it happen to me while working on the
drive. No guess on exactly what is failing. Is it going kerlunk,
kerclunk, kerclunk, at about 1 second intervals on bootup?

The BIOS should recognize a drive regardless of the state of the drives
partitioning, formatting etc. The BIOS via int13 says hello to the
drive's electronics and it reports back its CHS, LBA etc.. If this
doesn't occur it is a problem with the drive electronics. I've verified
this by taking two identical Seagate 160 GB drives. One that failed to be
seen in BIOS and one that was making some weird noises. Both were out of
satellite DVRs. Swapped the drive electronics and the drive that could
not be seen by BIOS now showed up and functioned properly for a year
after. Just an FYI.


--
Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Wed, 18 May 2011 07:03:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

I was using Clonezilla to try to get a newly cloned XP system to boot

<snip>

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

It could be that the drive has a weak head or bad media.

There is a reserved System Area (SA) on the platters which stores the
runtime (ATA) firmware, defect lists, SMART data, etc. When the drive
starts up, it executes a POST and some minor bootstrap code on the
PCB, and then proceeds to retrieve the firmware from the SA. If the SA
is unreadable, then the drive won't come ready.

You could try a DOS based diagnostic such as MHDD. This can access the
drive directly, without going though BIOS:
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD

Be sure to use the ENABLEPRIMARY switch if the drive is the master on
the primary IDE channel:
http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Documentation.pdf
http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf

Otherwise you could access the drive via its serial terminal interface
using a program such as SeDiv. Let me know if you need more details.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 03:18:23 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I did try MHDD, when I hit F2 to get the hdd info the result was
"drive not ready" ...

That could mean that the drive is stuck in the BSY state.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[mike]

Meat Plow wrote:

The BIOS should recognize a drive regardless of the state of the drives
partitioning, formatting etc. The BIOS via int13 says hello to the
drive's electronics and it reports back its CHS, LBA etc.. If this
doesn't occur it is a problem with the drive electronics. I've verified
this by taking two identical Seagate 160 GB drives. One that failed to be
seen in BIOS and one that was making some weird noises. Both were out of
satellite DVRs. Swapped the drive electronics and the drive that could
not be seen by BIOS now showed up and functioned properly for a year
after. Just an FYI.

That reminds me, I have an identical drive lying around here
somewhere, so
at least can swap the electronics and see what happens - thanks.

 

[mike]

On May 18, 8:10 pm, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:

What kills drives is turning them on and off repeatedly.  I have
machines where the drive is running 24x7, and they last many years.  I
have an ancient Conner 1GB 1060S drive running in my SCO Unix 3.2v4.2
server since about 1985 without difficulties.

In 85 that would be a humongous sized drive. Sounds like a record in
the making, if not already...

Or XP setup didn't recognize it, because it did show up correctly and
quickly on the startup screen as the
system  booted

OK.  The BIOS recognizes the drive, but Windoze does not.

Ok, that was approximately the situation before I deleted the non-NTFS
partitions - after deleting those partitions
it just sits there when the machine is turned on, it spins up but
there are no sounds of the heads
seeking anything, and the bios finally times out and says there is
nothing on the IDE channel it's plugged
into - it just sits there, brick-like...

 There's
a chance that the drive can be revived if you wipe it clean.

Ah, there is still hope, then, I'll see if those programs will touch
it like it is.

Try one of the numerous disk wipe type of programs.
http://www.dban.org/about>  (what I use)
http://www.diskwipe.org
Stuff in the Windoze XP CD and boot it.  It should ask to partition
and format the disk.  After it's done, it will install XP.  Much
easier with a clean HD.

Try Seatools and see if it finds anything:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
It probably won't if the BIOS can't find it, but it's still possible.

I tried a couple different versions of Seatools, I guess when the bios
doesn't see it, other programs can't either.

Make up your mind please.

Sorry for the confusion - what I mean is that after the drive became
brick-like,
I tried out Seatools 1.09 and 3.04 with the drive plugged in but
undetected,
and neither version was able to see the drive.

 When you go into the CMOS setup, does the
drive show up and is it correctly identified as an ST340810A drive?

No, not any more

if so, the BIOS sees it.  If not, it's dead.

So far it's RIP ded.

Thanks again,
Mike

 

[mike]

On May 19, 1:12 am, Franc Zabkar <fzab...@iinternode.on.net> wrote:

On Wed, 18 May 2011 07:03:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlight...@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

I  was using Clonezilla to try to get a newly cloned XP system to boot

snip

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into,  it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

It could be that the drive has a weak head or bad media.

There is a reserved System Area (SA) on the platters which stores the
runtime (ATA) firmware, defect lists, SMART data, etc. When the drive
starts up, it executes a POST and some minor bootstrap code on the
PCB, and then proceeds to retrieve the firmware from the SA. If the SA
is unreadable, then the drive won't come ready.

Interesting details, thanks...

You could try a DOS based diagnostic such as MHDD. This can access the
drive directly, without going though BIOS:http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD

I did try MHDD, when I hit F2 to get the hdd info the result was
"drive not ready" - but I'll go back in
there and look into this ENABLEPRIMARY switch you mention - I'll have
to read some more of the docs.

Be sure to use the ENABLEPRIMARY switch if the drive is the master on
the primary IDE channel:http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Docume...http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual...

Otherwise you could access the drive via its serial terminal interface
using a program such as SeDiv. Let me know if you need more details

Ok, I'll look into SeDiv, but I have a feeling that communicating via
a serial
terminal interface is gonna be above my pay grade, I'll let you
know .

Thanks for the pointers and links Frank,
Mike

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[mike]

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 May 2011 03:18:23 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I did try MHDD, when I hit F2 to get the hdd info the result was
"drive not ready" ...

That could mean that the drive is stuck in the BSY state.

Hmm, that may be so, at least at the top of the MHDD screen the BSY
indicator is lit

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Mysterious Traveler]

On 05/19/2011 12:12 AM, Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Wed, 18 May 2011 07:03:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

I was using Clonezilla to try to get a newly cloned XP system to boot

snip

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

It could be that the drive has a weak head or bad media.

There is a reserved System Area (SA) on the platters which stores the
runtime (ATA) firmware, defect lists, SMART data, etc. When the drive
starts up, it executes a POST and some minor bootstrap code on the
PCB, and then proceeds to retrieve the firmware from the SA. If the SA
is unreadable, then the drive won't come ready.

You could try a DOS based diagnostic such as MHDD. This can access the
drive directly, without going though BIOS:
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD

Be sure to use the ENABLEPRIMARY switch if the drive is the master on
the primary IDE channel:
http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Documentation.pdf
http://66.14.166.45/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf

Otherwise you could access the drive via its serial terminal interface
using a program such as SeDiv. Let me know if you need more details.

- Franc Zabkar
My suggestion is that you take a close look at the pins where

the IDE cable plugs in and you'll probably find at least one
pin is bent and isn't plugging into the IDE cable.


--

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 03:01:06 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

it just sits there when the machine is turned on, it spins up but
there are no sounds of the heads
seeking anything, and the bios finally times out and says there is
nothing on the IDE channel it's plugged
into - it just sits there, brick-like...

1. Try it with just the power applied and no IDE cable connected.
Can you now hear the heads seeking? The IDE interface on the
motherboard might be fried.
2. You might not be able to hear the heads seeking (actually
self-calibrating) on power on if the machines fans are noisy. I use a
stethoscope.

Sorry for the confusion - what I mean is that after the drive became
brick-like,
I tried out Seatools 1.09 and 3.04 with the drive plugged in but
undetected,
and neither version was able to see the drive.
(...)
 When you go into the CMOS setup, does the
drive show up and is it correctly identified as an ST340810A drive?

No, not any more

Seatools should detect a drive that's not formatted, but does show up
in the BIOS. However, if the drive does NOT appear in the BIOS, it's
dead.

MeatPlow suggested juggling PCB's on the drive. That might be worth
the effort as drives that don't appear in the BIOS are usually PCB
failures, not HDA failures.

if so, the BIOS sees it.  If not, it's dead.

So far it's RIP ded.

Seagate and Western Dismal have made my life interesting. Prior to
about 2005, WD drives had horrible premature failures and Seagate were
surviving much longer than WD. After about 2008, the situation was
reversed, with Seagate drives failing miserably, and WD doing much
better. That's also the current situation. With only two players
left in the commodity retail drive biz, it's becoming rather scarey.
All I can hope for is that the SSD drive makers take over quickly.
Hopefully, they'll last longer than 3-5 years but too soon to tell.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_hard_disk_manufacturers>

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Adrian C]

On 19/05/2011 16:33, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Seagate and Western Dismal have made my life interesting. Prior to
about 2005, WD drives had horrible premature failures and Seagate were
surviving much longer than WD. After about 2008, the situation was
reversed, with Seagate drives failing miserably, and WD doing much
better. That's also the current situation. With only two players
left in the commodity retail drive biz, it's becoming rather scarey.
All I can hope for is that the SSD drive makers take over quickly.
Hopefully, they'll last longer than 3-5 years but too soon to tell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_hard_disk_manufacturers

Good grief, reading that have noted Seagate have recently lept into bed
with Samsung (trouble free drives in my TiVo), and WD has just gobbled
up Hitachi GST. Billion dollar plus deals.

--
Adrian C

 

[mike]

On May 19, 9:38 am, Mysterious Traveler <mysterious.trave...@dot.net>
wrote:

My suggestion is that you take a close look at the pins where
the IDE cable plugs in and you'll probably find at least one
pin is bent and isn't plugging into the IDE cable.

--
OK, next chance I get I'll do that, though I think its unlikely that

that's the problem (knock on wood

 

[Meat Plow]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 08:33:37 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Thu, 19 May 2011 03:01:06 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:


it just sits there when the machine is turned on, it spins up but there
are no sounds of the heads
seeking anything, and the bios finally times out and says there is
nothing on the IDE channel it's plugged into - it just sits there,
brick-like...

1. Try it with just the power applied and no IDE cable connected. Can
you now hear the heads seeking? The IDE interface on the motherboard
might be fried.
2. You might not be able to hear the heads seeking (actually
self-calibrating) on power on if the machines fans are noisy. I use a
stethoscope.

That's a great suggestion. Any odd noises, seeking, RPM going up and down
indicates electronics fail or in a few cases a fail to read the
engineering data. I was under the assumption and don't ask why, newer
drives have engineering data written to NVRAM on the drive's board.




--
Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

 

[Shaun]

"mike" wrote in message
news:be4e4f45-9aea-42fe-9e99-d347c0440bff@e21g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...

Greetings to all you techies 'out there',

I'm wondering can anyone give me some clues as to what happened to
this Seagate 40 Gb hard drive I was messing around with the other day.

I was using Clonezilla to try to get a newly cloned XP system to boot
on a disk that previously had contained a few different partitions,
one of which had Ubuntu on it. I've used Clonezilla for this before
and it's worked flawlessly - but this time, on the reboot where the OS
is supposed to be initialized (or something), instead, rather than
offer the option to bypass the CD and boot from the hdd, it would go
back to starting up the install option of the XP CD;

The XP partition was the only one recognized by the XP CD, so I used
Part Ed Magic to delete the non-NTFS partitions, thinking that would
fix it, but instead the hdd acts like a brick now, and worse than a
brick, since whichever IDE channel it's plugged into, it prevents
that channel from detecting itself and any other device on that
channel (jumpers set to cable select), causing big time delay in boot
while the BIOS trys and fails to detect said items.

Since Bios can't detect the drive I can't try recloning or even wiping
the drive so I can start over with it - any one have any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mikel

It's a 40 Gb drive, very old technology. Just through it out and buy a new
drive. You'll probably get a 500 Gb for $30 some dollars.

Shaun

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 22:10:27 +0000 (UTC), Meat Plow
<mhywattt@yahoo.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I was under the assumption and don't ask why, newer
drives have engineering data written to NVRAM on the drive's board.

Head characteristics vary significantly. Some have better frequency
response than others, or they may have variations in the separation
between the read and write elements. To take advantage of the better
performing heads, drive manufacturers implement VBPI (Variable Bits
Per Inch) and VTPI (Variable Tracks Per Inch). The "adaptive" data for
each head need to be stored in NVRAM so that the drive's MCU can find
the SA (System Area).

This article should explain it:
http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html

You can see the adaptive data for a Seagate 7200.12 here:
http://forum.hddguru.com/seagate-7200-t10899.html

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Shaun wrote:

It's a 40 Gb drive, very old technology. Just through it out and buy a new
drive. You'll probably get a 500 Gb for $30 some dollars.

That kind of defeats the reason for having a repair REPAIR newsgroup.


--
It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

 

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, May 18, 2011 3:34:55 PM UTC-7, Meat Plow wrote:

The BIOS should recognize a drive regardless of the state of the drives
partitioning, formatting etc. The BIOS via int13 says hello to the
drive's electronics and it reports back its CHS, LBA etc.. If this
doesn't occur it is a problem with the drive electronics.

The relevant issue, though, is that the drive in question
was growing bad sectors; even a 'good electronics' drive
might NOT pass power-on self test and will tell the control
software NOTHING useful, when the wear of years stops it from
reliably reading the magnetic info.