I've heard most of that before. It all used to be written to an engineering track on the drive media at the factory. This is why a low level format would probably destroy the drive. I figured sooner or later it would be written to the drives electronics as they advanced.
Depends if the controller and BIOS are getting the info from NVRAM or an engineering track on the platter. Don't know when this came about but probably not back in a 40 GB drive. And apparently not when drives were
160 GB, Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm. I've swapped electronics on two identical drives one making some seek noises and constant clicking, and one that was dead. I revived the dead drive and it worked fine for a year. Both drives had run continuously in DVRs for at leat 2 years.So not knowing which brands and models handle engineering data and when they switched over if they did puts me at a disadvantage. I'm just trying to develop the overall picture logically but will end up doing some actual reading.
buy a new
Just a follow-up on the drive - whatever happened to it, neither the electronics nor the recording-media part of it work any more. After careful inspection, there are no problems with bent pins, or other physical problems apparent. I spose I might have an intermittent IDE cable which only acted up maybe a couple of times during the dozens of cyclings of various programs and test runs, but the cables on there are the kink with an extra gizmo to pull the cable lose from the plug without stressing the cable-to-plug connection. Anyway, thanks to all for the suggestions, I was successful at least in learning a bit more about how hard drives work.
Mikel
There is a 80gig IDE drive for $18.99 at
?cat=3DHDD
Good price, but if I needed a disk I think I'd do a little research and see if there isn't one with double or thrice the capacity for a few bucks more that has some kind of decent reputation - if there is such a thing.
However, I wouldn't buy anything from computer geeks, they cured me of long distance shopping a few years ago when they did the ole bait and switch trick on me, maybe they're better now but at the time they were selling crap that didn't work.
Mike
You may have some cracked solder joints on the controller board on the drive, or other problems. Some repairs are beyond the average tech, because they don't have the right tools available. You need good magnification and a steady hand to resolder some ultra fine pitch ICs, and most people can't do it even with the right tools. I keep dead drives on hand to swap boards and sometimes repair a controller board, but I worked in electronics manufacturing where it was part of my job to do that level of work. Just keep studying electronics and you may be surprised at what you can learn. :)
,
Well, that's a thought, I've not spent any time looking over the circuit board under the magnifying light - but, I have no confidence in being able to do solder joint touch ups to a board with surface-mount components. I was kind of transitioning out of electronics about the same time surface mount stuff started being used in everything,so I've never even seen any of the specialized tools up close.
Oh, yeah, gotta keep the ole synapses properly exercised, so why not...:)
I was hand soldering leads spaced .015" center to center under a stereo microscope just before I ended up on 100% disability. I miss being able to do that kind of wotk, and the ~ $500,000 worth of test equipment I had on my benches at work.
at
Here's a good 160
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