Data Recovery via Terminal Mode

The difference between Seagate HD Doctor and other ones is that all diagnosis is done via terminal mode (CMD Mode). Seagate HDD can works in ATA interface and COM interface. Once the HDD works in COM interface, it will output message to the log telling working status after power reset. Therefore, we can decide further action according to message in terminal mode.

Picture 1 terminal mode

The above picture is terminal log of SATA HDD, which works normally. We can know that drive family is PUMA2; ROM version is 0.03; and firmware version is 3.03. “Buzz – Head Mask FFFF –Switch to full int.” means head is good and working well. “Spin Ready” means motor works well and reaches the required speed. “SATA Reset” tells that drive is ready.

However, if HDD has malfunction, it will output error message to the log, e.g., “Stuff was unreadable”, “OVERLAY FAILED” etc. The former means stuff is corrupted, while the latter means ATA is corrupted. We need to overwrite a donor firmware to recover those problems.

Picture 2 Stuff corruption

Picture 3 ATA corruption

Sometimes, we need only to overwrite donor firmware and sometimes we need to use diagnostic commands. When you input a command to the log, the HDD will respond accordingly to it. For example, if you press keyboard [Ctrl] + [Z], the HDD will return a prompt “T >” (for Barracuda 7200.11, it’s “F3 T>”). Some command commands will be introduced in next blog article.