Hi John Samperi, I researched this UDMAUPDT utility. It appears it's smart enough to tell which drives it'll work with. Out of curiosity, have you tried going back to Mode 4? (udmaupdt /dma:4) IMHO, I don't think the update utility foobar'd your Seagate. As for the board swap. It sounds like a viable solution in that I think the udmaupdt program most likely sets a few "bits" on the Maxtor which is then stored to flash memory. If you think it's EEPROM, check out the seagate and look for chips that have 8-pins. Their part #s will either be 24Cxx or 93Cxx (where xx is a two digit #). If, on the other hand, you find chips that are labeld 25Fxxxx and are much larger than 8-pin chips, it's most likely parallel flash. I like your idea though. If it's a simple serial EEPROM, then we can find someone with an identical drive to dump the EEPROM's contents from. Also. On some drives, there are solder pads on the PCB for a header. There will be labels like "Tx Rx GND +5V" if they're there. This is a diagnostic port. Depending on the drive, you can do lots of things! Of course, some of it requires a Phd in HD Technology. You can connect it to your serial port (if you're handy with a soldering iron). On one of my drives, its serial port runs at 9600-8-N-1. If you find this on your Seagate, and want to give it a shot, drop me a line and I'll give you the nitty gritty details. So, in conclusion...(dangit, this isn't a speech! <G>) If the drive is in fact unfixable by the methods mentioned above, I think a PCB transplant would be the next best option. Regards, Tim Hamel John Samperi wrote: > > Hello all > > As mentioned before, I have had a bit of a disaster. The subject > line calls for a Nice Educated Resourceful Dude (N.E.R.D.) who > can delve deeply into a PC's hardware. > The following was posted to a few lists last week: > ********** > Disaster #1. > I replaced my HDD with a Maxtor 40 Gb disk. Unfortunately > it was too good for my computer and it would hang on restart > as it is well documented on Maxtor's web site. > After much head scracthing I managed to get it up and running, the > hang problem still there. A last look at their website and a "FIX" > utility was recommended, UDMAUPDT.EXE that was supposed > to slow down the hard disk to UDMA 33 (mode 2). > Needless to say it didn't work and it killed my old HDD that was > hooked up as a slave. If anyone happens to know if and how > I can revert whatever the fix utility changed in my old SEAGATE > ST3421a I would be extremely grateful. All my data would be > restored. YES I KNOW, Backup! I have quite a lot of backups > on CD and old disks but it is very tedious to bring it all back > together. > ***************** > > I have received a few suggestions, one of which is to purchase > an identical HDD and replace the driver PCB with my old one. > This would work if the HDD has some EEPROM memory > which the above utility modified and the data on the platters > has not been destroyed, but I will try this as a last resort. > > The disk is now installed in an old Pentium 75 machine and > I can safely try anything. The disk is not recognised by BIOS. > I have downloaded Seagate's Seatools but they don't work because > BIOS doesn't see the disk no matter what I try. The disk is still > spinning and tries to perform some BIOS commands, but in a Tower > of Babel fashion, they don't know what the other is trying to say! > > I guess I need something that bypasses BIOS and can communicate > with the disk even though is set as NONE in BIOS. With the disk > set to any size, (Seagate recommends setting it as a 20MB HDD for > testing purposes) the computer hangs on startup and will take a very long > time to get to the A drive to load up DOS or any other utility. > > I hope someone has an answer. On a brighter note most of my data > has been recovered from various backups but I just know that the day > I will need something in a hurry it will not be there. > > Amore Fraterno (Brotherly Love) > > John Samperi > Baulkham Hills Congregation > Sydney Australia > http://home.primus.com.au/samperi/jps.htm