PC-3000 Forum

To start, this is my first drive recovery using the PC-3000, I know I have a lot to learn.

I am recovering a Seagate ST3250820AS 3.AAC, Galaxy2D (SATA). The PCB was fried (short takes down the power supply when connected). Replaced the PCB with a donor one (same drive type, chip number, etc). Via PC-3000 saw FW from platter was damaged. Used the PC-3000 to reload FW from PC-3000 database. That seemed successful. Status register display now shows drive becoming ready. Ran numberous PC-3000 tests and PC-3000 Log Tab shows FW loading OK; Random read OK; Reading OK; Surface verification OK; duration of these tests was 3:06:23. All seems good.

Connected drive to my Tableau forensic write blocker and the write blocker shows the SATA deveice detected. Again a good sign. However, linux does not see a device attached. A good drive when connected via the write blocker will show as /dev/sdc even when no partitions (e.g.drive wiped to 0x00). But nothing with this drive.

When I leave the terminal connection and power connected to the drive via the PC-3000 and use the write blocker to the Linux system, the PC-3000 terminal tab shows the following message:

(H)(H)SATA Reset
(H)SATA Reset
(S)SATA Reset
AT Er 01 Nwt Er 00 RdWr ffffffff.00.0071
ATA St d0 Er 04 Op ef 0,0000/0/00,00 00 85
Niwot: 0001640d 58 0001640d.0.008 0001 3fe0 0001 0000

I can't seem to find any documentation explaining these error messages. Could somebody point me in the right direction for decoding this terminal output. Also and suggestions if another step is needed with the PC-3000 would be appreciated.

Thanks,

I will answer my own question. What ever that error is, it seems to only affect the BIOS drive recognition if the (Linux) computer BIOS is configured for the SATA port in legacy IDE mode. When I switched to SATA ports in the computer's BIOS to be AHCI mode, the drive was recognized after a successful firmware re-write and all data was recovered from the drive using dcfldd to copy it to another drive.

jnicholls wrote:I will answer my own question. What ever that error is, it seems to only affect the BIOS drive recognition if the (Linux) computer BIOS is configured for the SATA port in legacy IDE mode. When I switched to SATA ports in the computer's BIOS to be AHCI mode, the drive was recognized after a successful firmware re-write and all data was recovered from the drive using dcfldd to copy it to another drive.

The BIOS Tweak is Very Interesting