Matching Serial Numbers on Hard Drives
This link is where I keep track of documentation on how each hard drive needs to be matched for a working donor drive. I get this any where I can, use it if you can, and if you happen to find something out please let me know so I can add it to the collection!
NOTES:
Drives with the same model number can still have different numbers of heads, therefore the board is different. It is possible to identify the number of heads in a drive: Maxtor,Quantum, Seagate from the serial numbers:
REFIRBUSHED DRIVES
REFIRBUSHIED drives cannot be used as a donor drive. Head 0 is the bottom head and could be bad. And substandard parts are often installed. It is very difficult to match a refirb drive to a good drive with the same problems. This also makes it difficult to make repair a refirb drive.
QUANTUM
Quantum – the third number in the serial number shows the headsQuantum = HA code must match
SEAGATE
Seagate – the third SYMBOL in serial number represents the heads. Seagate’s sometimes have extra heads and when one is refurbished it is possible to turn off a bad head and turn on an alternate one and then the firmware number revision might change.
FUJITSU
Fujtsu needs the first xx-Xxxx to match
IBM and HITACHI DRIVES – Usually the same driveIBM MLC codes have to match
HITACHI
Hitachi ATMR 80gigs fails mostHitachi 3.5 – Firmware code needs to matchHitachi 2.5 – PCB rev has to match
WESTERN DIGITAL DRIVES
DCM codes for the (5th??? And) 6th numbers must match.No Western Digital drives with the letter R in the code. EB and BB models.Western Digital Drives EB and BB have the head stack affixed from the lid. Western Digital the sixth char in the model is the cache. U = 2meg V=8meg
SAMSUNG
Samsung the 4th Char in the alpha code on the label on the rear side needs to matchSamsung the 7th char in the model is the size of the buffer H=8megs
MAXTOR DRIVES
The second number of the serial number represents the number of heads Maxtor needs the 2nd and 3rd char to match:
Hi you all, this is the answer I received directly from Maxtor
Dear Mr. Robert,… here is the paragraph that deals with your model type (DiamondMax Plus 9):
For the following Maxtor hard drive models: Fireball 3, DiamondMax 16, DiamondMax Plus 8, DiamondMax Plus 9, Diamond Max 10 and all MaxLine products there is also a GTLA Number on the model (next to barcode on the bottom of the drive). Format 1Y222J2223322. 1, 2 and 3 stand for numbers, Y and J for letters. The numbers 1 and 3 as well as the letter Y need to be identical to be able to replace the PCB on these drives. This number can be found on the large sticker on the top of the drive.
Unfortunately we cannot give you any more information than this. Any of your DiamondMax Plus 9 drives could possibly have a matching PCB, however it is most likely to be an older one as the drive in question is almost 3 years old.
Kind regards,
Gisela Schubert Technical Support
Maxtor Ireland Ltd.
copied from: http://forum.hddguru.com/howto-how-to-replace-maxtor-calypso-iii-board-vt5977.html
Serial Number on Hard Drive
The boot sector in the FAT32 partition
The boot sector in the FAT partition
The data contained in the boot sector after the OEM name string is referred to as the BIOS parameter block or BPB
