Ruben J=F6nsson wrote:

> I am in the process of trying to recover some data from a hard drive melt=
 down. =

> The drive is a SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.7. When pursuing this I have f=
ound =

> that the drive actually has a serial (UART) terminal interface which can =
be =

> accessed through the jumper pins without even connecting anything to the =
(S)ATA =

> interface. This goes for drives with both the (P)ATA and SATA interface. =

> =

> The terminal interface has a ton of commands that are primarily used at =

> manufacturing and testing. There exists software that can read data from =
the =

> drive using the terminal interface (as part of a recover process) and I a=
ssume =

> it can write data to it also.
> =

> Even though this might only work on old seagate drives, it is an interest=
ing =

> idea to have access to (almost) unlimited storage space for a small PIC t=
hrough =

> a simple and relatively slow RX/TX serial interface.
> =

> Has this been done with a PIC or any small micro before?

You might have a look at: =

http://justanotherlanguage.org/content/tutorial_pata_hard_disk

Regards, Rob.

-- =

Rob Hamerling, Vianen, NL (http://www.robh.nl/)
-- =

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