Dead SCSI drive?

[Mike]

Hi All,
Got an IBM DMVS18V SCSI HD. Was running in a friends server with most of his
business data on it. Fortunately most of it was being backed up, all but a
few important files that is.
It was connected to an LSI SCSI card, and i just brought it home and
connected it to an Adaptec 2940UW.
It spins up at the SCSI BIOS, but then i get a "Startup Failed" error
message.
I tried running the IBM drive fitness test version 3.50, and it never really
detects the drive, that is to say it doesn't show its capacity.
I was able to run the quicktest on it, and got a Failure Code 0x71 defective
device device is not ready.
I have another identical IBM SCSI drive, and it is jumpered the same, and
works fine with this Adaptec card.
I have used a few utilities in the past to try and retrieve data from
corrupted or formatted drives, but something tells me this thing has seen
its last boot.
Any suggestions before i break the bad news to my friend?

 

[Rita A. Berkowitz]

Hi All,
Got an IBM DMVS18V SCSI HD. Was running in a friends server with most of his
business data on it. Fortunately most of it was being backed up, all but a
few important files that is.
It was connected to an LSI SCSI card, and i just brought it home and
connected it to an Adaptec 2940UW.
It spins up at the SCSI BIOS, but then i get a "Startup Failed" error
message.
I tried running the IBM drive fitness test version 3.50, and it never really
detects the drive, that is to say it doesn't show its capacity.
I was able to run the quicktest on it, and got a Failure Code 0x71 defective
device device is not ready.
I have another identical IBM SCSI drive, and it is jumpered the same, and
works fine with this Adaptec card.
I have used a few utilities in the past to try and retrieve data from
corrupted or formatted drives, but something tells me this thing has seen
its last boot.
Any suggestions before i break the bad news to my friend?

Try connecting it to your friends LSI card and see if it works.



Rita

 

[Mike]

Try connecting it to your friends LSI card and see if it works.

I did mention that it was connected to the LSI, and that is where the
problem originated.

 

[Mike]

Anyone ever hear of freezing a hard drive as a method of reviving it?
This friend talked to a local computer repair place, and they said that it
was one of the methods they try first.
I can see maybe if something is mechanically jammed, that it might possibly
have some benefit but it sounds pretty far fetched to me.
I talked to a tech at Ontrack, and it was $250 to analyze and $3000 to $9000
for the repair!
I have it in the freezer at this point, and will give it a few hours, and
then see what happens.
If any change ill let ya'll know.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Hi All,
Got an IBM DMVS18V SCSI HD. Was running in a friends server with most
of his business data on it. Fortunately most of it was being backed up, all but
a few important files that is.
It was connected to an LSI SCSI card, and i just brought it home and
connected it to an Adaptec 2940UW.
It spins up at the SCSI BIOS, but then i get a "Startup Failed" error message.
I tried running the IBM drive fitness test version 3.50, and it never really
detects the drive, that is to say it doesn't show its capacity.

Because of the capacity being recorded on the platters and the drive not
being ready.

I was able to run the quicktest on it, and got a Failure Code 0x71 defective
device device is not ready.

So it never completed it's spinup and internal diagnostics successfully.

I have another identical IBM SCSI drive, and it is jumpered the same,
and works fine with this Adaptec card.

And why wouldn't it. All SCSI is FW and BW compatible, except HV-Differential.

I have used a few utilities in the past to try and retrieve data from
corrupted or formatted drives,

but something tells me this thing has seen its last boot.

Depends on the defective part. If the defect is in the HDA then you're toast.
If it is in the Electronics assembly you can exchange that with the other drive.

If you have Adaptec's EZ-SCSI you could run SCSI explorer or SCSI Bench
and see what Sense data is displayed. (Not Ready is only the Sense Key).
Or run www.nu2.nu/scsitool

 

[Michael Salem]

Anyone ever hear of freezing a hard drive as a method of reviving it?
This friend talked to a local computer repair place, and they said that it
was one of the methods they try first.

I've heard from people who've successfully recovered data this way. Once
it does start working, extract the data from it immediately -- you never
know when it will die.

Another technique which can help if the drive is stuck is to rotate it
rapidly around the axis of disc rotation, and stop with a jerk.

Whether these things work obviously depends upon the fault: some faults
will never clear this way.

Best wishes,

 

[Mike]

Well i froze it for a couple of hours, and just tried it. Same thing it
spins up but not quite to the same speed as the good drive, and then i get
the Startup failed error again.
I tried swapping out controller boards and same thing.
One note for anyone thinking of freezing their HD. Right after it spun up,
the HD casing and the controller board started to thaw rapidly.
I killed the power before the moisture started to build up, which it did all
over the controller board.
Im not saying there was frost on the HD when i took it out of the freezer,
just the rapid change in temp caused the moisture to coalesce.
I may try the SCSI tool and see what happens.

 

[Mike]

Ran the SCSITool and im not sure what you are referring to with the Sense
Data.
I did get the following info when running the SCSITool:
0,1,0 IBM DMVS 0250
Device "DMVS" 0,1,0 is not ready.
Not ready - Logical Unit Failed Self- Configuration

Then after selecting the drive the following was displayed at the top of the
screen:
0,1,0 IBM DMVS (0250) Disk No Capacity! 10,000 rpm not ready
WCE=0 BFR=1MB BusXfer= 18001 KB/S S/N ="

Tried executing the SCSI command stop and then start, and got he following
errors:
Hardware error
Internal Target Failure

Time to practice my hook shot?

 

[Eric Gisin]

Frozen items will frost up in moist warm air. I doubt the inside would.

| Well i froze it for a couple of hours, and just tried it. Same thing it
| spins up but not quite to the same speed as the good drive, and then i get
| the Startup failed error again.
| I tried swapping out controller boards and same thing.
| One note for anyone thinking of freezing their HD. Right after it spun up,
| the HD casing and the controller board started to thaw rapidly.
| I killed the power before the moisture started to build up, which it did all
| over the controller board.
| Im not saying there was frost on the HD when i took it out of the freezer,
| just the rapid change in temp caused the moisture to coalesce.
| I may try the SCSI tool and see what happens.
|

 

[J.Clarke]

Yes i thought about that, but the inside is hermitically sealed so i
don't think the moisture would be an issue.

Common misconception. While there are hermetically sealed disks which
are used in military and space applications, the ones you buy at a
computer store are not hermetically sealed, there is an equalization
hole with a filter, which allows air movement into and out of the
capsule.

 

[Mike]

Yes i thought about that, but the inside is hermitically sealed so i don't
think the moisture would be an issue.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yes i thought about that, but the inside is hermitically sealed

It isnt, actually. There has to be a breather that allows
the internal and external pressures to equalise.

so i don't think the moisture would be an issue.

Probably not, but for other reasons.

 

[rim]

"Mike" :

Anyone ever hear of freezing a hard drive as a method of reviving it?
This friend talked to a local computer repair place, and they said that it
was one of the methods they try first.

I saw some guys (at work...) to rescue data from a drive by putting a beer
can coming out from the fridge on top of the disk.
It was able to keep the disk cool long enough in order to copy the needed
files.

The next step it to actually put the disk in the fridge...

This technic will only work with drives that will work a few
seconds/minutes before "giving up".

--Richard.

 

[Overlord]

If you've tried everything else.... could free it up from stiction....
I had a drive that wouldn't spin up after multiple tries.
Finally powered down, dropped the drive on the carpet from a foot or
so, powered back up, and when the drive light came on, I rapped it
pretty good 3 times across the front of the drive with the back of a
ream. The drive spun up one last time and I pulled my data as fast as
I could based on most irreplacable first.

Hi All,
Got an IBM DMVS18V SCSI HD. Was running in a friends server with most of his
business data on it. Fortunately most of it was being backed up, all but a
few important files that is.
It was connected to an LSI SCSI card, and i just brought it home and
connected it to an Adaptec 2940UW.
It spins up at the SCSI BIOS, but then i get a "Startup Failed" error
message.
I tried running the IBM drive fitness test version 3.50, and it never really
detects the drive, that is to say it doesn't show its capacity.
I was able to run the quicktest on it, and got a Failure Code 0x71 defective
device device is not ready.
I have another identical IBM SCSI drive, and it is jumpered the same, and
works fine with this Adaptec card.
I have used a few utilities in the past to try and retrieve data from
corrupted or formatted drives, but something tells me this thing has seen
its last boot.
Any suggestions before i break the bad news to my friend?

~~~~~~
Bait for spammers:
root@localhost
postmaster@localhost
admin@localhost
abuse@localhost
postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
~~~~~~
Remove "spamless" to email me.
The spam was just getting overwhelming.
I had to...

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

That was with the Adaptec utilities.
SCSITool translates those but sometimes doesn't show them (with Seagates).
Apparently that is a Seagate issue only.


The Adaptec utilities would show that as Sense Key 1, Sense Code 4C and
SC Qualifier 00.


translation for Sense Data 4 44 00


If the same happens with the other EC or the defective drive's EC works fine
on the other drive then the HDA is at fault.

And the score is?