Help! Seagate ST3160023A rosted!

[RealJMan]

Hi, guys,

I tried looking around, but didn't find anything relevent, so wanted to see if someone can get me out of this.

My seagate HDD (ST3160023A 160GB) has been working fine, until days ago the PC doesn't start, which I found later that the hard drive got a burnt component on its control board, and possiblly was knocked out because of the power supply failure -- the PS has gone, and I had to order a new PS for it.

Now, while replacing the PS is only a couple of dozens $'s, I'm trying to get my data back from the HDD. I looked at the burnt little thing, it says "ST BUX C334", which, after I checked with ST, is nothing but a serial # Seagate put on (possibly its original # was too long). This makes it hard for me to replace the chip, although I'm guessing it's a diode.

Anyone out here has any experience with this drive? or know anything about what this chip is? Or any comment that you want to share. I'm not gonna do it with a DataRecoverer, as it's only my home PC, but I'm happy to experiment anything I could with it.

Thank you very much.

 

[technome]

Purchase a used or new drive, exact make, model and replace the electronics board.. relatively easy if you remain patient while removing/connecting the leads to the drive. If you are hesitant, take the drive and the purchased drive to a computer tech store, most techs have experience.

 

[RealJMan]

Thank you, technome!

Did you see a possibility that the board might be carrying some info specific to the HHD?

RealJMan

 

[mainegeek]

Swapping out the board is the easiest way to go.

 

[RealJMan]

Thanks guys. I've just put in an order for a same one. Will post any progress I'll have.

RealJMan

 

[RealJMan]

Hi, gurus,

My part arrived yesterday. It was an exact replacement of my HDD, seagate ST3160023A. However, with a different firmware version - my old man was v3.0.x, while the new guy is v8.0.1
Anyway, I just wanted to give it a shot, so this is what I did:

1) Hook the new guy intact up, install 48-bit support. PC reports find a new hardware, and wants to install something. I had to confirm to proceed. After that PC recgonized the new HDD.

2) Pull the new guy off my pc, swamp the control board over to the old man, which is then hooked up. PC again reports to install something. I confirmed and proceed, whatever. Boom, I can access the old HDD without a problem.

3) Copy all my data out -- it was 150GB of trash.

4) Swamp the control board back to the new guy.

Now everything is working fine. Didn't expect it'd be a smooth operation, but it's worthy of trying. Hope this would be helpful to someone here. Also thanks guys here show me a way.

 

[technome]

Cool when a little miracle comes along. Most hard drive I get to, the drive heads crash into the platters with no chance of recovery; nice when it is just the electronics board.

 

[satrow]

-- it was 150GB of trash." - ???

Was the data recovered successfully (as it had been) or was it corrupted?

Andy.

 

[RealJMan]

Sorry for the confusing. Every bit of data recovered was right. But right data doesn't mean that it is not trash. ) (Nothing is serious in my home pc. Probably i should say that from my experiment point of view, it is worthy of my every effort. I would also like to appreciate technome and silicon sharing their ideas with me.)

Another question , though. Did anyone here have experience with software RAID with Win2K? Is it do-able to set up RAID1 with my home pc? (I'm thinking buy another ST3160023A as a redundancy)

Thanks again.