Data recovery for FireCuda ST1000LX015 after a NAND failure in Leuven
The problem
An HP gaming laptop that no longer booted, brought in by a client from Leuven, and inside it a 1 TB Seagate FireCuda ST1000LX015: a hybrid drive, fitted in machines like this to speed up load times, that is a conventional hard drive with a flash memory chip soldered onto its board. The drive would not spin at all. It still reported its model and serial number correctly, a sign that the fault was not mechanical. On this model the NAND chip carries part of the firmware, so when it fails the drive can no longer initialise, even with untouched platters. On it were the client's photos and personal documents, with no full backup.
Our intervention
On power-up the drive does not spin up but comes to DRD+DSC and reports its passport correctly, while the terminal shows the error LED:0x000000BD FAddr:0x000059D8, the signature of the failing NAND on this series. Because the patient's board was dead, it could not be used to unlock the drive. The patient ROM was first read through the terminal, then a donor board was sourced on three strict criteria: same model, same firmware version, same PCB number. The patient ROM was written to that donor board, the board was fitted to the client's drive, and unlocking was done through the terminal, with the NAND reinitialised using the /OI1 command. Before any reading, the background processes were switched off: automatic reallocation on read and on write, deferred defect hiding, idle activity. The drive was then imaged sector by sector on PC-3000 Data Extractor.
Result
On this hybrid model the failure sits in the electronics rather than the platters, and that is what makes a complete recovery possible: 100 % of the data read, with no missing sectors. The photos and personal documents were returned in full. Sourcing a compatible donor board remains the longest step in this kind of job.
Frequently asked question
FireCuda ST1000LX015 after a NAND failure: can the data be recovered?
On power-up the drive does not spin up but comes to DRD+DSC and reports its passport correctly, while the terminal shows the error LED:0x000000BD FAddr:0x000059D8, the signature of the failing NAND on this series. Because the patient's board was dead, it could not be used to unlock the drive. The patient ROM was first read through the terminal, then a donor board was sourced on three strict criteria: same model, same firmware version, same PCB number. The patient ROM was written to that donor board, the board was fitted to the client's drive, and unlocking was done through the terminal, with the NAND reinitialised using the /OI1 command. Before any reading, the background processes were switched off: automatic reallocation on read and on write, deferred defect hiding, idle activity. The drive was then imaged sector by sector on PC-3000 Data Extractor. On this hybrid model the failure sits in the electronics rather than the platters, and that is what makes a complete recovery possible: 100 % of the data read, with no missing sectors. The photos and personal documents were returned in full. Sourcing a compatible donor board remains the longest step in this kind of job.
Related service: hard drive data recovery