PC-3000 Forum

Hi everyone,

My Seagate SSHD - model Laptop Thin ST500LM000, f/w: DEM7 is death (not spin up).
I made the basic work and checked the simple elements of PCB (transil, resistors 0, cleaned contact strips, even resoldered the motor controller) - unfortunately - the drive still the same "dead".
Access via terminal is not available. When power on - BSY. Anyway - the same PCB somehow works - i can download the BIOS by the terminal in PC3K.

After reprogramming (or resoldered) the BIOS (by PC3K) drive remains a dead (if donor PCB has a different firmware). With the identical donor PCB (the same firmvare version) and reprogramming the BIOS disk spin up but with parameters (sn, etc.) from donor. Like identical after hot swap. Of course, can't read SA and user area......

It seems to me - that because it is hard SSHD - start the drive is very fast (before it gets started motor). To make this possible, some are some startup information must be included in ROM and NAND of the disk.

I my opinion, theoretically are there way to recovery data.

First: repaired PCB.
It may be difficult because the same PCM can be effective. If they are physical or logical errors in NAND this possibility will not be successful. Only, when any others element is damaged (fe. transistor). Further risk when resoldered critical element (bios, NAND, ASIC) to other PCB - these components can be damaged....

Second: Disable feature of SSHD.
Perhaps we can block all that SSHD (any bypass) and switch to work as a normal HDD.
In my opinion this way is the best. Question: If we can disable the NAND - how to do it ?

Third:
Replace critical startup information from own patient NAND of PCB to donor NAND of PCB.
Similar question: If we can - how to do it ?


Can someone please help ?
I thank You in advance for your help.

igen

Hello,

igen wrote:Source of the post After reprogramming (or resoldered) the BIOS (by PC3K) drive remains a dead (if donor PCB has a different firmware). With the identical donor PCB (the same firmvare version) and reprogramming the BIOS disk spin up but with parameters (sn, etc.) from donor. Like identical after hot swap. Of course, can't read SA and user area......

Did you try to read sectors in the end of the drive?

Hi, Dmitriy,

First my donor disk overwrite (all sectors) characteristic sign of binary ("4D" byte in hex).
Next made hotswap. After this i can reads several of the first sectors (sectors but filled with "4D") - the next area of the errors are errors ..... Similarly, at the end of the disk - a few sectors reads (but with "4D") and then the same errors ....

Thanks for answer - Dmitriy. Do you think, that we can get the data recovery by locking NAND and start the drive in normal HDD (not like SSHD)? Or other method ?

Thanks and rgds.

I'd love to see a firmware tweak where we could instruct these drives to completely disregard the NAND and just act like a normal drive. Not sure how deeply the code is embedded into the overall firmware structure (I'm guessing it's deep). But, perhaps Seagate left a way in there for such a process for their own purposes.

Hi everyone, again

Has anyone any idea ?

I greet all.

Hello igen,

I'd like to advise you to find donor PCB with the same FW version and try to replace PCB with ROM transfer.

Thanks Dmitriy,

Buying identical donor (the first characters of the serial number, firmware, model) - it was the first thing I did.

Then reprogrammed (in the next step resolidered) bios.

The drive spin up, but on the settings of the donor (serial). SA does not read and I can't read the data area of the user.

Dmitriy, what can I still do?

Frends,

It's done.
This method (6 step) is working, but with other donor.
I d't know - why my first donor (totaly identical) was not god for these method.

Thank to all for help.

Hi Igen:

I tried the six step but it did not help me same drive like your what you did different on the 2nd donor ?

IGEN,

What was step 6? I have exact same issue. very close match parts. swapped roms to donor PCB. Now it spins still no data access.