Maxtor ROMULUS Firmware

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carl Farrington
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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
 
If you don't need to recover data from it, buing a new drive is cheaper than
your time.
 
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...

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?
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

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).
Click to expand...

ebay isnt a bad source of drives like that, even
if you have to import it from yankeeland etc.
 
Carl Farrington said:
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.
Click to expand...

Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive is dead.
 
Folkert said:
Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive
is dead.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Your news client hasn't been setup properly.
(probably OE-QuoteFix)

Carl Farrington said:
Is it that the drive is failing to read from the reserved area of the disk?
Click to expand...

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

Thats pretty typical with maxtor drives that fail like that.
 
Folkert Rienstra said:
Actually, that means that the firmware is alright, but that the drive is dead.
Click to expand...

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 said:
What is it doing wrong?
Click to expand...

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.
 
Leo said:
No, that means a typically firmware damage.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

Thanks for confirming that the drive is dead.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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

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.
Click to expand...

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
Click to expand...

Your quote:
 
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