www.deadharddrive.com

[MEhrius]

The disk is a 250GB IDE DiamondMax 10 with 16MB of cache.

It's PCB fried and I got another one from www.softcom.com.my (as close as I could find).
The differences are:

The chips on mine are:

agere beagle d4-d4, 040116600, beagle-D4-D4-950, 05097, 6518243
SAMSUNG 507, K4S281632F-TC60
SMOOTH L7250E 1.0, B993Q0235 MAL

and on the one i received

agere beagle d4-d4, 040116600, beagle-D4-D4-950, 0450T, 6489743
SAMSUNG 431, K4S281632F-TC60
SMOOTH L250E 1.2, 9904V V8, MYS 99 451.


So I guess the firmware doesn't match. What can I do? When I plug it in Windows sees it as a 280GB drive. Tried GetDataBack but all I got was I/O 121 errors.

[webmosher]

I have a very similar drive to this one, though mine is SATA. I've posted looking for some clarification on board specs, but not had any luck yet. Hopefully someone will help. Unfortunately, it seems that different Maxtors have different board matching codes. The older the Maxtor drive, the more forgiving the PCB match.

I do know that the physical chip matches are an important first step, but that the actual firmware must also match as closely as possible. However, with the DiamondMax 10's, I am not clear on how to find this match. There may be at least two or three methods to finding the firmware revision that I have found:

1) The CODE on the drive label itself seems to be a solid firmware revision. The problem with this code is that some vendors do not retain the original drives, and you need to ask for that info if they still have it. Supposedly, if this can be matched, the PCB should work.
2) There is usually a 5 character code on the PCB bar code that is useful for matching. However, I have seen at least two reports here with DiamondMax 9 drives that this does not need to match exactly.
3) Some reports say that the TLA code, or the code above the longest barcode on the main drive label can match in specific areas and this will match the PCB between drives. This may be hit or miss, because while the code describes the physical format of the drive, the firmware flash will contain the layout positioning data on the drive. Firmware is crucial I believe.

Now, there are some reports with the DiamondMax 9's that you can remove the firmware chip from the original board (as long as it is intact) and put it on the new one and you will do well. However, no one has apparently tried this with a 10 series drive. I don't even know which chip is the firmware on these boards.

Anyhow, good luck with your search. Softcom carries very few SATA PCBs, so I have had better luck on eBay. Unfortunately I have not found a good match yet based on the criteria above.

[harddrivespecialist]