When we repair the HD, We usually encounter some HDD which has the regular bad sectors, stuck head. We should first consider the head damaged. Usually we should disable the head instead of swap the head. To the serious bad sectors, depop sector or depop head is the only way to disable this area. The detail operation on
Maxtor HDD head disabling is as blew:
This case study will take the Maxtor 6H HD as example
First, we should correctly connect the HD with Maxtor Doctor, Then, load HDD Management. We can get the HD information and the head number:
From the above picture, we know the HDD has 6 heads, from head 2 to head 7, and head 3 is the primary head. The head disable operation should be used for the HDD which at least has 2 /more than 2 heads. Also it shouldn’t be used for disabling the primary head, because the primary head will read the firmware when startup the HDD. If you need to disable the primary head, you should redefine the primary head at first (more details, please refer How to redefine head for Maxtor drive”). In case the miss operation on the head disabling, we suggest you backup all of the firmware first.
Be careful about the backup for P-list. Please make sure the P-list has been backup, because we should import the P-list after the head disabling. Otherwise when start the HDD, the drive will read the original defect list and cause some unknown problems.
Then we should scan the bad sectors by click the “Scan” on the Defect List Operation interface:
From the above picture: When scan to LBA=1705950, there are s serial bad sectors, then the head stuck. Maybe the platter has been scratched or the head was damaged.
Then turn to the “Section Operations” interface, click the “Load Section Table”. Program can automatically load the HDD heads distributing and sector information:
The bad sectors are on the LBA 1705950, so we should examine the Sector00 (LBA: 0-48492335). Select the Sector00, and then examine the heads. Because the sector includes 6 heads, we start scanning from primary head. Click “Start Scanning”:
From the “Current Track”, we can see the track which is being scanned. The bad sectors will be displayed in the right pane. There are no bad tracks in this sector by a period time scanning. Then we changed the scanning head to head 4:
Click “Start Scanning” again:
From the table in Red, you can see there are massive bad sectors on Head 4. Now, we move to test the Head 5 to 7 and find no bad sectors.
So we depop the Head 4 as example. (Notice: If the head is not damaged, you don’t need to depop the bad head. Instead, you can depop the section of bad sectors to save more space. Hereby, we depop the bad head directly to demonstrate the function.
There are Two Ways to depop head:
First method, click the Section of Head 4, edit the values into “000″ one by one.
After edit the value into “000″ from Section 00 to Section OF, click to save:
Second method: Input the Head Number which needed to depop, here, input “4″ directly and click “GO”:
Then the section of Head 4 will be changed to “000″, the same result as the Method 1.
Then click “Save” and the operation was done.
Power off – on and Open “Load HDD Management”:
All the Section of Head 4 becomes “000″, meanwhile the parameter of LBA is updated to the new capacity.
Then we go to “Detect List Operation” panel, and “Empty P-list” and “Empty GP”.
After clicking “Yes” and the P-list is emptied, if try to view the P-list, there will show error info in the left Table.
Now, you can import the original P-list file you backup from the disk:
There are two P-list files: P-list.bin and P-list.txt, select “P-list.bin” and open it:
Then, power off-on once more, the depop operation is done.
If you want restore the depop head, you only need to upload the original firmware to the HD.
I finally find this imformative tutorial, thank you so much