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This article introduces one case study on how to recover lost data from one patient HDD of ST1000LM035-1RK172 with LED error within the COM terminal.

HDD ID

Patient drive: ST1000LM035-1RK172
SN:WDEB845P Firmware: SBM3
Capacity: 1TB

Reported HDD symptoms

No access, LED error appear under COM terminal, no ID information show up in DFL device.

Data Recovery Solution

Following steps were performed for this case:

1, Back up ROM: this should be the first and universal step for all Seagate cases.
2, Unlock SA:generate unlock ROM – write unlock ROM – power off and on – send unlock key.

3, After unlock SA, the drive keeps reporting LED error. This error prevent us from entering F3 T>. How should we do for this kind of situation? In fact, when we encounter this kind of issue, it is important to keep pressing Ctrl +T immediately once the handshake went successfully. That means we have to enter F3 T> before LED error appear.
4, Back up most important firmware module: since the SYS cannot be backed up directly via “Read SYS”. We used the feature of “Edit SYS” to back up the important module 28, 35 under COM mode.

5, Clear Glist: input command i4,1,22 for clearing G list.
6, Regenerate translator: input command m0,6,3 for regenerating translator.

7, Scan the drive: ID information displayed properly, the whole drive can be scanned smoothly and work perfectly after regeneration.

Data extraction: use DFL-DDP file extractor to check the data, all the files are accessible and all files are recovered.