Reload Deskstar firmware without recognising drive

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

A company called iDriveRepair want to charge $295 for trying to fix it
remotely. It occurs to me that if I get a 2nd 180GXP, I can either
fake out DFT by switching the IDE cable, or simply reap the working
PCB.

Comments/suggestions?

Dave, http://www.deep-trance.com

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:58:14 GMT, David Gould
<spamtrap@deep-trance.com> wrote:

>My GXP180 sounds like the scrambled NV-RAM on this page:
>
>http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/ibm-deskstar-hard-disk-drive-data-loss.htm
>
>Unfortunately DataClinic quoted me £800 to fix it. They said that
>it's caused by a component failure and that the fix would only last
>until powering down.
>
>I'm not convinced but even then I can quite happily restore my own
>data if I could only upload the firmware.
>
>The Hitachi tech support have kindly sent me a copy of the firmware
>but have only provided me with the Drive Fitness Test program which
>will only upload it if it can recognise the drive.
>
>Unfortunately, neither my BIOS nor DFT have recognised the drive since
>the problem started.
>
>I haven't tried a second machine & I haven't tried setting the drive
>params manually in BIOS.
>
>FWIW, the problem started very suddenly whilst I was out of the room.
>The drive was the Secondary Master and somehow my Master Boot Record
>on the Primary Master also got scrambled. Running Win2k SP4. The GXP
>has serial #: G3C0A61G.
>
>Appreciate any help that costs < £150 ($250)
>
>Dave, http://www.deep-trance.com
>Guaranteed life changes in Bristol, UK
>
>No2ID "more sinister" than government snooping - Baroness Gibson
>http://www.no2id.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=1417#1417