There are times (rare, but they do happen) when I receive a drive with a firmware issue that is beyond my capabilities to fix. Firmware issues can be very routine (like the Module 32 WD Slow Fix firmware issue), to something like this ST1000LM035 firmware situation where I had to contact the makers of the PC-3000 data recovery rig I have to help with the firmware fix.
Recovering ST1000LM035 Firmware Issue
This ST1000LM035 Seagate hard drive was a mail-in from Houston, Texas. The client needed to get their personal photos and school documents from the Seagate drive that was inside their laptop. The drive was no longer mounting and the other repair and recovery shops they had gone to said the drive was not recoverable. They reported the drive had just stopped working and had not been dropped or damaged in any way.
Inspecting the drive for recovery
When I received the drive, I completed a visual inspection and found that the drive looked physically perfect. No issues were visible with the heads, platters, PCB, etc. When I connected it to the PC-3000 it became ready with an ID (a great sign), but I could not access the sectors on the platters (no LBA access). The drive sounded good, but would just not let me access any of the data on the platters.
ST1000LM035 Firmware Module 348
After some troubleshooting, I was able to narrow it down to an issue with Module 348 of the drive’s firmware. I hadn’t seen an issue with this module before and there was not any literature about the problem available, so I reached out to the makers of the PC-3000 to ask them what they recommended for the next steps. They were able to log in remotely and show me the fix for this particular module 348 issue.
They said they do not have a step-by-step manual for the ST1000LM035 Firmware MCMT fix because there are so many peculiarities during the procedure. This is a perfect example of how important it is to find a recovery technician with a lot of experience when you are looking to get your data recovered. Not giving up when the regular fixes don’t work and narrowing down a difficult issue ended up being the difference between having the important photos recovered, and having them be “unrecoverable” as the other shops had labeled the drive.
Imaging the hard drive
Sometimes firmware issues are caused by some other failure (like bad blocks or a weak head), and these issues can cause additional trouble when trying to image a drive. In this case, once the ST1000LM035 firmware issue was addressed, I was able to image 100% of the data on the drive.
The customer was extremely pleased to get the data back from the drive when they had been told it wouldn’t be possible by others. This drive took 5 days to complete the recovery and was covered under our Standard+ recovery tier (due to the advanced firmware issue present).
Start the recovery process
This was a mail-in data recovery from Houston, and we complete data recoveries from all over the United States every week. If you have a drive that you need data recovery services on, please consider sending it to me for recovery! I would be happy to help you get your important data back. You can see our affordable data recovery price list, give me a call to discuss your project at (620) 615-6836, or fill out my quick data recovery quote form to get a quote on your particular drive.
SEAGATE Mobile HDD 1TB, WWN:5000C500C2F81057, ST1000LM035, EW: EB01, DOM: 03SEP2019, Site: TK
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