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Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:36 pm
by lcoughey
This drive has what appears to be a very rare firmware, DEMD, which has the sourcing of an exact donor for PCB near impossible.

After a couple of months of trying almost everything we could think of, we finally got it to a point where we are mirroring the drive. But, it takes about 10-15 minutes for it to come ready. Any attempt to read SA, including drive ID causing the drive to get stuck at BSY. We had to create a task without drive ID, read in PIO mode and disable all reset option in the task.

Here a few screenshots showing that we did get it working. This is going to take some patience and a lot of time.
ST1000LM014_sshd_utility.png
ST1000LM014_sshd_utility.png (67.12 KiB) Viewed 11940 times
ST1000LM014_sshd_de2.png
ST1000LM014_sshd_de2.png (29.16 KiB) Viewed 11940 times
ST1000LM014_sshd_de.png
ST1000LM014_sshd_de.png (25.9 KiB) Viewed 11940 times

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:47 pm
by LoboX
Interesting...

This hdd models are very difficult, from what i was reading and have been told. good try tho.

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 1:42 pm
by LoboX
I got in my hands a ST1000LM014 and look what i am getting, you plug the hdd, hdd doesn't spin and is BSY, So i have another SSHD same PCB#, so i decide to move patient ROM to good PCB, after i transfer the ROM, the good PCB now gives me BSY same thing with the patient PCB, so i'm guessing the ROM is corrupted.

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 1:52 pm
by lcoughey
Is the patient PCB the exact same firmware version and completely wiped before the ROM transfer?

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:00 pm
by LoboX
is different one is DEMG the other HPP1, so i guess that wont work i will need the same FW then?

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:37 pm
by 1thomas
I'm working on a LVD5 firmware drive. Thanks for the info on gaining access to the sectors. In my case, it takes 3.5 mintues to turn from BSY to DRD+DSC. Once this occurs, some things can be performed, such as saving the ROM by working with the Utility Extensions-Work with Flash ROM image.

I can create a DE project by not trying to read ID on start, (I do have to provide the total sector count or it defaults to 2TB instead of 1TB), and under the "Command to Read" tab in DE, I chose "do not use hardware retries". (There isn't a PIO option...didn't there used to be?..., but I guess maybe this would be the same, since you're not selecting a UDMA speed?)
In my case, I do have access to user data and sectors, but I get too many bad sectors to make it worthwhile. Some areas copy really well, others hit lots of bad reads (black sectors), and then after not too much time I hit loss of read sectors (red), since the drive goes BSY. I'm not sure if mine actually has bad sectors, or if it's just that the process isn't ideal.
I can't find a donor with LVD5 firmware to try, but it sucks to feel like I'm getting so close with this method (Using the original, assumed-bad-NAND PCB).
Any suggestions? Did you encounter lots of bad sectors during your cloning process? Did you do something different than what I've described?

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 1:12 am
by Blizzard
1thomas wrote: Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:37 pm and under the "Command to Read" tab in DE, I chose "do not use hardware retries". (There isn't a PIO option...didn't there used to be?..., but I guess maybe this would be the same, since you're not selecting a UDMA speed?)
Yes, there are 2 PIO options in DE
1) Use hardware retries
2) Do not use hardware retries*
There is also a warning about the second option not working for LBA > 268435455

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:08 pm
by lcoughey
I'd use the "use hardware retries setting", but don't recall getting a lot of read errors. That likely suggests weak heads/media damage.

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:10 pm
by 1thomas
This drive seems the same whether hardware retries are used or not. I have it selected to use hardware retries now, and I'm copying backwards from the end and it's going really well (though slow of course at 6.6MB/s), with huge runs with no bad sectors. Copying backwards in the MFT/INDEX areas showed lots of bad sectors, so this might be a compound problem drive with actual bad sectors in addition to the bad NAND. I'll know in another day or 2 if it continues to have bad sectors in those areas.
I have DE set to repower upon loss of ready, and wait 240 seconds for ready state to keep the process going, since it takes 3.5 minutes to go ready after a re-power.

Re: Crazy ST1000LM014 SSHD Recovery

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:12 pm
by lcoughey
Yup, that is pretty much all you can do.