Firmware of the drive is not located on the PCB as most people think. Main part of firmware are stored on the platter in so-called Service Area. Service Area occupies the negative cylinders, usually on the inner diameter and contains a number of firmware modules.
All Maxtor drives have two SA (Service Area): SA-A / SA-B (some are three). SA-A is the main service area, usually the drive works with this service area. But if some firmware were corrupted in SA-A, the drive will switch to SA-B automatically as the temporary working area.
Usually after we fixed the firmware corrupt in SA-A, the drive will work with SA-A again, but sometimes for some unknown reason the drive also may switch to SA-B, for this condition, we couldn’t switch the drive to SA-A through firmware repair.
Yesterday I have a case about this problem, so follow me to study how to switch the SA for Maxtor drive.
Look at the picture, the CODE number show RBMC1TU0, the second number “B” means working in SA-B:
Then we booted it in safe mode with its original firmware, now its working in SA-A, and then check the firmware, but all modules are ok:
At first I supposed whether the customer has upload the ATA or the P-list modules not in one group (customer is not sure), so I tried to upload both the two groups again:
But this operation is invalid too.
Now we went to a special module: #149 module:
This module is working about the SA selective. We also could modify this module by manual to select the SA-A or SA-B.
Double click this module:
Be attention to the third and the last number, its 01A5 and 2E31. The 01 and 31 present SA-B.
Now we could upload another 149 module that backup from a drive working in SA-A, or modify it by manual:
Now we have modified 01 to 00, and 31 to 11. (The 00 and 11 present SA-A)
Then back to the normal, load from HDD, we can see the drive was working in good status:
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