Hard drive not detected in bios-disk spins and heads move

[bigj231]

Hey guys,
I'm in a sticky situation. My parent's computer had a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750 GB hard drive and an Intel DG35EC mobo. The Northbridge on the motherboard fried, and now the hard drive can't be detected in the BIOS on our other computer. I replaced the mobo and the drive, and got it working again for them, but I really need to get data off of the drive.

When I plug it into the other computer and into the new motherboard, the drive spins and the heads move at startup, but then nothing happens. While the BIOS detects the drives, it hangs on the port where the old hard drive is plugged in, and then finishes booting normally. It doesn't make any weird noises, sounds the same as the day it was installed.

I've seen other posts about replacing the PCB on the drive, but I'd rather not go to that length if it is not necessary. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You.

 

[fzabkar]

Your drive may be a victim of the Seagate 7200.11 BSY bug. The bug affects Maxtors, too.

Here are repair procedures for Seagate 7200.11 drives:
http://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807

Tutorial with photos:
http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/457286-seagate-bricked-firmware-drive-fix-pics.html

Pinout of Nokia CA-42 cable's Pop-port connector (use pins 6,7,8):
http://pinouts.ru/CellularPhones-Nokia/nokia_pop_pinout.shtml

See the following technical bulletin:

Urgent Field Update. Topic: Drive Hang after Power Cycle:
http://www.expreview.com/img/topic/seagate_firmware/1-16_KB11_Barracuda_Field_Update.pdf

Seagate were at one time offering free data recovery services to those customers whose drives were affected by the bug. This may still be the case.

After you have repaired your drive, you can apply the following firmware update.

Firmware Updates for Seagate Products [207931]:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

 

[bigj231]

Thank you for your quick reply, but won't this erase the data? In one of the pictures in the Overclock.net guide it shows something about formatting user partitions. The data is really more important to me then keeping the drive itself.
Thanks,
Bigj231

 

[fzabkar]

The procedure is data safe. The "partitions" referred to in the article are not in the user data area. They are part of the hidden System Area (SA) of the drive. The SA is where the firmware, bad-block list, SMART data, etc are stored.

 

[bigj231]

Thanks, I will try that tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Thank you,
Bigj231

 

[bigj231]

Well, it turns out that it's a thermal problem with the controller board. It works for about 30 seconds, and then you can fry an egg on the board. Any suggestions on where I could find a working board?

 

[fzabkar]

Try http://www.onepcbsolution.com.

You will need to transfer the "adaptive" data from your original board to your donor. The above supplier offers a "firmware transfer" service for US$10.

That said, it may be that your drive has internal faults, eg bad motor bearing. The motor controller IC will be the one that is closest to the motor connector.

 

[bigj231]

Best answer selected by bigj231.

 

[bigj231]

Thank you, I will need to contact them. Just need to check if they can get a board for a 750 GB drive now.