WD4000AAKS-PCB, ROM, SA, Heads OK, ERR AMN - What Next?

[drmilos]

I am working on a WD4000AAKS-00TMA0

Drive spins, does not click, becomes ready and keeps spinning all the time. No funny noises.

Due to the problems as described below I have replaced PCB with one from a working drive (just to eliminate possible faulty PCB) and uploaded ROM - so PCB is presumably OK.

Drive IDs correctly (Tornado) and utility starts in Normal mode.

ROM Tested OK.

All heads (2, 3, 5, 6, 7) tested OK on cylinder -10

SA structure test - All modules OK (except 2D and 2E, not to worry)

Hardware modules checking - all OK

Module 90 reads OK.

I am not posting any of these results as they are OK, if someone wants to see some I'm happy to post them.

Any attempt to read a user data sector (from sector edit) results in ERR AMN. Read SMART times out (with readyness 1000 error). DE hangs trying to read the drive.

Could someone please point me in the right direction from here as I don't know what to do or what to test/correct next? Any hint/piece of advice much appreciated.

[AJ2008]

Try to read it at the end. Sometimes there can be problem with PCB (maybe VCM controller, not sure) where only areas at certain density can read, i.e the last 30% or so of the disk.

IF you can read sectors at the end of the HDD, then problem is PCB.

I have replaced PCB with one from a working drive (just to eliminate possible faulty PCB) and uploaded ROM - so PCB is presumably OK.

I would double check this is good PCB.

[drmilos]

Mystery solved!

Your comment to check the PCB got me thinking - I know PCB is 100% OK, I pulled it off a drive used as a clone target few days ago.

I received my PC3000 kit 10 days ago and funnily enough never checked it with a working drive. So I discovered that with 100% working drives I can't read user sectors in PC3000 utility or copy files in DE (basically the same situation as described in the original post). I downloaded another driver version from AceLab website, updated driver in Windows and I can read good drives.

Back to the drive in subject, after this exercise, with good PCB and restoring original translator (which I rebuilt in frustration somewhere along the way) I can copy the files in DE. Case closed.

Perhaps new PC3000 users should be prompted to check their kit with a 100% working drive and re-install the driver (try different version) if something is amiss.

Thank you for your advice, it pointed me in the right direction.

[AJ2008]

Great news