Maxtor ROMULUS Firmware

[Carl Farrington]

I wasn't going to bother posting this as I'd already decided it was a no go,
but another post made me think twice.

I have a customers Maxtor 80gb drive, it's of the Romulus series (model
4D080H4). The firmware seems to be corrupt, resulting in the drive being
detected as simply "Maxtor ROMULUS" with no geometry information.

Any tips what to do? I don't see any firmware updates on the Maxtor site,
but this customer really wants his information from it. I have considered
swapping the logic board/pcb but I can't find another drive like it (all
those available now are 6xxxxx models).

cheers,
Carl

 

[Alexander Grigoriev]

If you don't need to recover data from it, buing a new drive is cheaper than
your time.

 

[Rod Speed]

I wasn't going to bother posting this as I'd already decided
it was a no go, but another post made me think twice.

I have a customers Maxtor 80gb drive, it's of the Romulus series (model
4D080H4). The firmware seems to be corrupt, resulting in the drive being
detected as simply "Maxtor ROMULUS" with no geometry information.

With Maxtor drives particularly the problem appears
to be that they keep the specific info on the drive platter
and so when that cant be read anymore at device
initialise time, it just reports the generic model name.

Any tips what to do?

Basically fix the problem that prevents the specific data
being read from the platters. That may be due to a logic
card failure, or it can be inside the sealed chamber,
with the connection to the heads or the head subsystem.

I don't see any firmware updates on the Maxtor site,
but this customer really wants his information from it.

Safest to use a pro recovery service if the need is important enough.

Their high prices may be justifiable for a business operation.

I have considered swapping the logic board/pcb but I can't find
another drive like it (all those available now are 6xxxxx models).

ebay isnt a bad source of drives like that, even
if you have to import it from yankeeland etc.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I wasn't going to bother posting this as I'd already decided it was a no go,
but another post made me think twice.

I have a customers Maxtor 80gb drive, it's of the Romulus series (model
4D080H4). The firmware seems to be corrupt, resulting in the drive being
detected as simply "Maxtor ROMULUS" with no geometry information.

Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive is dead.

 

[Carl Farrington]

Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive
is dead.

Is it that the drive is failing to read from the reserved area of the disk?
The unit appears to spin-up without any untoward noises and keep spinning.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Your news client hasn't been setup properly.
(probably OE-QuoteFix)

Is it that the drive is failing to read from the reserved area of the disk?

Could be. Or anything else that falls under failing the spinup tests.

 

[Rod Speed]

Is it that the drive is failing to read from the reserved area of the disk?
Yep.

The unit appears to spin-up without any untoward noises and keep spinning.

Thats pretty typical with maxtor drives that fail like that.

 

[Leo]

Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive is dead.

No, that means a typically firmware damage. But it can't be fixed by
usual firmware update, because some data, unique for this HDD, are
damaged. It can be fixed only by the specialist, manually, and with
special equipment.

Leonid

 

[Carl Farrington]

Your news client hasn't been setup properly.
(probably OE-QuoteFix)

What is it doing wrong?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

What is it doing wrong?

Please, don't compare your original and the quoted messages as they
appeared in usenet. God forbid you'll find out what the difference is.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

No, that means a typically firmware damage.

There's that hobby horse of yours again.

But it can't be fixed by usual firmware update, because
some data, unique for this HDD, are damaged. It can be fixed
only by the specialist, manually, and with special equipment.

Thanks for confirming that the drive is dead.

 

[carl]

Please, don't compare your original and the quoted messages as they
appeared in usenet. God forbid you'll find out what the difference is.

I still don't see a problem, other than the lack of a message-id in my
follow-ups. Care to spit it out?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I still don't see a problem, other than the lack of a message-id in my
follow-ups. Care to spit it out?

Fine:

My quote:

I wasn't going to bother posting this as I'd already decided it was a no go,
but another post made me think twice.

Your quote:

My quote:

I have a customers Maxtor 80gb drive, it's of the Romulus series (model
4D080H4). The firmware seems to be corrupt, resulting in the drive being
detected as simply "Maxtor ROMULUS" with no geometry information

Your quote:

 

[Carl Farrington]

Fine:

My quote:


Your quote:


My quote:


Your quote:

Okay I see what you mean.