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My Hard Drive Died | Scott A. Moulton

My Hard Drive Died!

When you absolutely, positively need your data back!

Hard Drive Serial Number Matching

This link is where I keep track of documentation on how each hard drive needs to be matched for a working donor drive.  I get this any where I can, use it if you can, and if you happen to find something out please let me know so I can add it to the collection!  

NOTES:

Drives with the same model number can still have different numbers of heads, therefore the board is different. It is possible to identify the number of heads in a drive: Maxtor, Quantum, Seagate from the serial numbers:

 

MAXTOR DRIVES

The second number of the serial number represents the number of heads

Maxtor needs the 2nd and 3rd char to match

  • DiamondMax Plus 9

    For the following Maxtor hard drive models: Fireball 3, DiamondMax 16, DiamondMax Plus 8, DiamondMax Plus 9, Diamond Max 10 and all MaxLine products there is also a GTLA Number on the model (next to barcode on the bottom of the drive). Format     1Y222J2223322. 1, 2 and 3 stand for numbers, Y and J for letters.
    The numbers 1 and 3 as well as the letter Y need to be identical to be able to replace the PCB on these drives.

    This number can be found on the large sticker on the top of the drive.

    Unfortunately we can not give you any more information than this. Any of your DiamondMax Plus 9 drives could possibly have a matching PCB, however it is most likely to be an older one as the drive in question is almost 3 years old.

    Kind regards,

    Gisela Schubert
    Technical Support
    Maxtor Ireland Ltd.

 

QUANTUM

Quantum – the third number in the serial number shows the heads

Quantum = HA code must match

 

SEAGATE

Seagate – the third SYMBOL in serial number represents the heads.

Seagate’s sometimes have extra heads and when one is refurbished it is possible to turn off a bad head and turn on an alternate one and then the firmware number revision might change.

 

FUJITSU

Fujtsu needs the first xx-Xxxx to match

 

IBM and HITACHI DRIVES - Usually the same drive

IBM MLC codes have to match

 

HITACHI

Hitachi ATMR 80gigs fails most

Hitachi 3.5 – Firmware code needs to match

Hitachi 2.5 – pcb rev has to match

 

WESTERN DIGITAL DRIVES

DCM codes for the (5th??? And) 6th numbers must match.

No Western Digital drives with the letter R in the code. EB and BB models.

Western Digital Drives EB and BB have the head stack affixed from the lid.

Western Digital the sixth char in the model is the cache. U = 2meg V=8meg

 

SAMSUNG

Samsung the 4th Char in the alpha code on the label on the rear side needs to match

Samsung the 7th char in the model is the size of the buffer H=8megs

 

Serial Number on Hard Drive

The boot sector in the FAT32 partition

43h

4

The serial number, the serial number is stored in reverse order and is the hex representation of the bytes stored here.

The boot sector in the FAT partition

The data contained in the boot sector after the OEM name string is referred to as the BIOS parameter block or BPB 

27h

4

The serial number. The serial number is stored in reverse order and is the hex representation of the bytes stored here.

 

 

REFIRBUSHED DRIVES

REFIRBUSHIED drives can not be used as a donor drive.

Head 0 is the bottom head and could be bad.
 

Scott A. Moulton

Forensic Strategy Services, LLC &

Network Installation Computer Services, Inc.

 

Forensic Strategy Services, LLC.
601B Industrial Court
Woodstock, Georgia 30189
ph 678.445.9007
fax 770.926.7089
email:Scott@ForensicStrategy.com

Hours of Operation: Mon-Fri 8am to 5pm EST
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