Unique hard drive failure symptoms on IBM Travelstar
80GN family and Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 family
Drive Families:
-
Hitachi 5K80 (Travelstar HTS548****M9AT00): example
models include HTS548020M9AT00, HTS548030M9AT00, HTS548040M9AT00,
HTS548060M9AT00, HTS548080M9AT00
- IBM 80GB (Travelstar IC25****ATMR04-0): example models includes
IC25N010ATMR04-0, IC25N020ATMR04-0, IC25N030ATMR04-0, IC25N040ATMR04-0,
IC25N060ATMR04-0, IC25N080ATMR04-0
Description of failure symptoms: The affected drive
will spin up when supplied with power. The drive reports a BSY state
immediately (this is normail behaviour during initialisation). The drive
heads will move from the parking area to the centre of the readable
platter area (mid way between the spindle and the outer platter edge).
At this point one of two different behaviour types can be observed
- Drive clicks erractically and does not seem to lock on the service
area track
- Drive heads lock onto the service area track but the drive remains
in a busy state (BSY)
After a period of roughly 60 seconds the drive will report on readiness
(DRD, DSC). At this point any attempt to issue an ATA command returns
the result DRD DSC ERR ABRT
The drive ID is not reported to the system & attempts to access
the data area result in further ABRT errors.
Observations of the Problem:
- Drive spins up and reports a BSY state (BSY register=1) on the ATA
status registers
- The drive will not allow access via standard ATA commands
- The drive may or may not click, however, other than clicking behaves
identically regardless of model
- A PCB swap with an identical PCB results in the same behaviour
- The original PCB is shown to work properly, without error on a similar
working drive
- A head change with a drive of identical model, part number and MLC
will result in exactly the same behaviour whilst the original head
from the failed drive will work without problems in the identical
spare
- A hot swap using a identical drive results in clciking or hanging
in an identical manner to that of the original problem
What if I have one of these drives but the symptoms
are different?: This is quite possible, they are still prone to
all the other problems hard disks suffer from ie. mechnical failure,
logical failure, bad sectors etc.
What should I do?: Call the Data Clinic and talk
your problem through with us on 0870 140 2525, or request a
callback.
Related Links:
> Main IBM
& Hitachi Travelstar laptop data recovery page (read this
page for other Travelstar failure symtpoms)
> Main laptop
data recovery page
> Main data
recovery page
> Explanation
of hard drive firmware
and service area
> Video showing failed
read write heads on a hard drive (symptom: hard drive makes ticking
sound when powered on)
Please note that all modern
hard disk drives are manufactured to very high standards, fail infrequently
and have very similar rates of reliability.
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Hard
Disk Problem? - Call Us
Data
Recovery London, South East & South UK
0870 140 2525
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Above: A Hitachi Travelstar (5K80 family)
Above: An IBM Travelstar (80GN family)
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