Importance of SA modules for recover & re-use HDDs

[Lightning]

Hi,

When a HDD has severe SA corruption but starts with a loader, according to your experience I ask you all what you should check :

1) F/W as close as the drive being serviced. For Maxtor, the three letters after the model e.g. AAA - ABA and the four letters e.g. K,M,C,A (identifier).
Which group is mandatory and MUST ABSOLUTELY MATCH ?

2) A group of modules are of critical importance and are HDA (head-disk-assembly) specific , I know P-LIST (AT_PDL), U_LIST, zone table (RZTBL), SRV and RCT (calibration adaptive and surface adaptive).
P-LIST I think could be cleared or copied "empty" from another drive if you don't have to recover data because there's no problem of shifting sectors containing data, I am confused about U_LIST, zone table, SRV and RCT.
If SRV and RCT are destroyed the drive is unusable or such modules could be copied from another working drive as close as possible to the specific HDA (e.g. AAA KMGA) ?
Also, I think SRV and RCT could be rebuilt if you succeed to start SELFSCAN, as in MX740 series (the drive checks servo, surface and rebuilds adaptive data then stores the correct values)...

3) The same old story : if SA has developed a bad sector(s), what you should do ?

4) Despite the fact many people say it's unusual, a lot of drives, especially N40P series, have peculiar G-list corruption, it is easy to diagnose because the drive is identified with LBA = -1. Have you encountered this situation ? Copying an empty G-LIST from a working Hdd did not correct the error, despite had no error when copying it

5) Evidence : Maxtor drives DO NOT check writing success on UBAs . True ?

6) Everything is complicated when the drive shows no passport (severe corruption) : what do you suggest in that case ?

Regards.

[Patriot]

Hmmm ....

My 6 cents ...

1. None ...

2. Critical parts cannot be copied over (Plist, Ulist, rztbl, srv etc etc) except if you know how to reset contents and run selfscan.

3. relocate SA sector. Else, paperweight ...

4. IMHO, N40P suffers defects from overheating. They overheats easily without proper cooling resulting in surface defects then head burned. Symptoms includes fw corruptions and knocking heads ... Glist corruption usually occurs when they overflow ... unfortunately it also triggers other internal flags that may cause the hdd to mark other modules as invalid ...

5. False. Maxtor drives DO check UBA sector writes.

6. Take a walk down the neighbourhood. Relax and calm down. Then, come back and determine what is the actual problem.

Rgds

[Lightning]

This case seems to be a G-LIST overflow or something like that. The drive - after rewriting modules - is very slow on getting ready , recognised as N40P anyway. Which tool for relocating SA defects or formula to convert UBA into PCHS ?
Also, rewriting the modules / groups, if maxtor DO check for correct writing, if a bad SA sector is encountered, is automatically relocated ? (added to P- or G-list, don't know) ?
Will SELFSCAN analyze also UBA for defects or only ABA ?
Now it's only for experimenting, the drive will be discarded anyway. The head or the preamp is NOT K.O. because starting the drive with the loader, it performs like brand new. The problem is either in the SA area or something in the modules.
Thanks.

[Patriot]

Hmmm .....

I heard pc3k pci and HRT are able to relocate SA defects. I haven't had any experience with them anyhow ... SA relocation is somewhat complicated as when sectors are shifted UBA sectors will slip and renders SA invalid.

Bad sectors in SA will have to be manually relocated. SA will then have to be manually updated. Thus, auto-relocation does not applies to SA. Finally, selfscan does not relocate SA defects.

For N40P with slow SA sectors and head/preamp is presumed good then probably surface has degraded. SA relocation will be needed. However, relocation is only for limited amount of sectors.

Rgds