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Cochise, don't panic or fiddle too much with that drive.
I have several 250 MB versions of that series, so I can replace a controller with one from another drive and see if it's working.
The point is that the drive may store geometry and defect management in an eeprom on the controller, so that would almost certainly make it useless on another unit.

cheers, Tom

The same version of this drive isn't available in my town.
I've bought this one on-line, together with the other components of my latest machine.
At now this model isn't available even at the on-line store where I bought the unit in question.

Beside geometry and replaced bad cluster list on eeprom, often different firmware versions have no compatibility with previous hardware.

I'm even considering warranty return possibility, though I'm not sure this is really worthwhile to me.

I really dunno if any disk specific data is stored on the controller - it's just a possibility.
If the test succeeds with the 250 MB spares I have, I could even send you a 500 MB controller, as the data is due to be transferred to a larger drive anyway.
if you send it in as warranty, they'll just trash it and send you a new one.

cheers, Tom

i'd take astro up on that.....

astroman wrote:I can replace a controller with one from another drive and see if it's working.

Can you do that without messing with the delicate moving parts? I have no idea, but if I was to do this, I would open and close and check a drive without valueable data first.

it's not a problen at all, in fact the Barracudas are extremely simple in this context.
with the tiny screws of a notebook drive it's much more demanding
as mentioned, I have several such drives as spare parts, no need to worry about real data

cheers, Tom

the control board is on the outside.

Yes the controller board is outside.
And the 500GB is even larger than the 320.

As far as I know there's oil or kind of liquid cooling inside most drives

The ST3320613AS is now available at the on-line store.

For sure isn't the same stock, so I should check if anything is changed in the controller revision and firmware series...

I can read on the drive: 'Product warranty void if any seal or label is removed, or if the drive experiences shock in excess of 350 Gs'.
Looks like no seal or label prevents from removing the controller PCB...

the only thing you can do about the drive is hope that the controller has a problem
(and a replacement controller will cure at least part of it)

anything beyond that point is up to professional data recovery
they have clean rooms to open the drives and mount the platters to a special machine
this machine has a software that can emulate almost any drive electronics and formatting

we've used such a service once on a notebook drive that had a broken off head
they charged per gigabyte, if memory serves about 2-3k Euro for a 100GB unit
(with bigger disks the per/GB rate is probably cheaper today)
at least they mailed a list of files with good recovery chances, so we didn't have to buy the cat in the bag

if you open the drive in a regular room, it will be beyond repair

you probably can't hide that you removed the controller because the screws are usually glued in with a specific substance, but it's very unlikely that the controller will be damaged.
I have done this before with the notebook drive (mentioned above) - facing a multi-k Euro charge you just try everything, even if it was almost certain from the behave of the disk that the head went off...
in an hour or so I can tell you if the exchange of the electronics worked or not.

cheers, Tom

If I might access a recovery service for that kind of amount I will give them the drive tomorrow.
At Seagate they were talking about something like 700-1200$ and up.

Why do you figure out the head is gone, Tom? I can briefly hear its sound at power on...
(and this might be a sign that the controller isn't entirely gone)
Maybe the head is electrically gone...
Does the storage capacity of the drive is determined each time at power on?

=Added= Sorry, you were probably talking about the notebook drive

Looks like there's no glue on the screws on both drivers (externally at least)

If the head is mechanically gone in my drive, this in no way could be related with the addition of the further drive, then I might be 1000% sure the Devil exists

the head thing was infact about that notebook drive - it had the usual click, click, click startup problems
startup went worse and worse until it completely failed

anyway, here's the good news - I exchanged controllers 1 and 2 in my storage array and the thing started up as if nothing had changed.
It did not start with a different Barracuda controller, though.
I have 2 versions with firmware 3.AAE (4 screws) and 3.AAH (6 screws)

drop me a note and I'll send you one in a letter - you can return it after use

cheers, Tom

you can exchange controller boards if both drives are from the same production run and have the same firmware. otherwise, no.....

i tried to post here yesturday... but my internet was so plaky it just wouldnt go...


however, i had a similar problem, but found relabeling the drives worked.
so if possible see if ya can change drive letters, then change em back later ... i diud and after deleting and the reentering the netwok paths everything was hunky dory

Immanuel! Mates!

If possible I should offer drinks to you all!

Just retrieved all the data from the drive I gave to my brother!

At the time it was my backup unit, the drive contained two partitions; the first one was a bootable partition with OS installed, the second was the backup partition.
Then the unit was re-partitioned as a single logic drive, formatted, and something less than 10 GB of data were written on it by my brother.
The old partition table and the FAT of the first old partition were overwritten, but at the sector 37913405, I've just been able to found the FAT of the backup partition; and both it and the backup data were not corrupted.
It has been a long way to copy them on the new drive cause Drive Rescue crashes every now and then, but it looks like almost all the data are perfectly working.
Unluckily this unit didn't contain the whole backup data, since the disk was full (mostly of trash ), but the biggest part is retrieved now.



Tom, thank you very very much for your commitment.
The board on my 7200.11 320 GB Barracuda has 6 screws. Just...this ST3320613AS is a single plate, 16MB cache unit; it's serial number is 9SZ062GF, firmware version SD11; the controller board number is 100496208 rev A.
Considering I retrieved now the most of the data, I'm not sure I would venture in swapping the controller board... How do the ribbon cables are connected to the board? Are they fragile? Are they soldered or are there micro ribbon connectors? I haven't got bad hands, but...

At now I'm thinking about setting the Barracuda in a frame and hang it to the wall; it could be a good way to remember to make frequent backups and to never lower the guard.

it's easy to try changing the boards. a few screws, line 'em up and done.

as Gary writes - plain and simple - the screws are Torx T-9, all connections are spring-loaded
but I have messed your drives: I assumed the 500MB was damaged, but it's the 320, isn't it?
I only have 500 and 250 GB drives here...
but if you find a 6 screw 320, it's no problem to exchange the controller.
Maybe eBay or a damaged drive from a local store - the controller is the least likely to fail, even if your experience suggests something different

cheers, Tom

I am so glad, that it works out for you
THIS is what I associate with the true spirit of helpfulness, that has keeped Z going for all of those years.

I guess, the lesson learned is - backup to 2 hard drives (each containing the same data) - so your back-ups works, if one drive fails. Ofcoarse the super thing to do would be to store one drive at another physical place, so in case of fire or other bad stuff, your data are safe.

Yes, that's the main lesson, but...
I haven't yet understood what's really happened. The drive failed exactly while I was exposed.
It's difficult to believe it's just a coincidence.
OK, I shouldn't have never been exposed, but...
I handled several HDDs year after year since 1995; It's unlikely I've done something coarsely wrong.
If I've done something wrong I'm still not aware about it.
I opened the chassis, inserted the 500GB unit, disconnected the power line from the 320GB unit and connected it to the new one cause the arrangement of the drives required this ( of course the machine was power off ), I connected another power plug to the 320GB unit and plugged the new drive with a SATA cable; then I closed the chassis and went to boot up.

Sorry, but what the fuck???
The machine was working fine before....



About the controller board: I guess it's useless to try to ask Seagate for a spare controller, or not?

makes no sense, here the drive is just 49 Euro - it's one of our largest online shops
you can still use it after recovery.

cheers, Tom