Data Recovery Maxtor DiamondMax 22

Retrieving data from Maxtor Diamond Max 22 hard disk drives

Failure symptoms & data recovery information: We have noted a general common cause of failure associated with specific models Maxtor DiamondMax 22 hard disks. The affected model numbers are as follows:

• Maxtor DiamondMax 22: STM3500320AS, STM3750330AS, STM31000340AS, STM31000334AS, STM3640323AS, STM3320614AS, STM3160813AS

Symptoms: The computer appears to hang in a ‘busy’ state, have a total capacity detected as 0 LBA or may report a ‘SMART’ failure.

Fault: The symptom relates to the firmware on the hard disk drive becoming corrupt.

Remedy: Data Clinic have developed means to restore ALL the models affected to a working condition without loss of data.

Notes: An invalid boundary value for the drive’s ‘circular event log” has been discovered. This coincides with a particular test pattern being placed in the system tracks of the reserved area by some of Seagate’s [who produced this Maxtor drive] post manufacture ‘tester’ applications and the event log pointer is incremented beyond its allowable boundary. This is detected as an ‘Assert Failure’ by the drive which then ‘freezes’ as a self-protection response. Once this occurs the drive remains inoperable regardless of how many times it is subsequently powered up. The nature of the problem means that incidents of failure are unpredictable.

What if I have one of these drives but the symptoms are different?: This is quite possible, DiamondMax 22”s are still prone to all the other problems hard disks suffer from ie. mechanical failure, logical failure, bad sectors etc.

What should I do?: Call the Data Clinic and talk your problem through with us on 0800 151 2207.