Maxtor Diamond Max 10 - Possible solutions

[Supershanks]

The Maxtor's 10 SATA Range w/16MB cache and NCQ has caused a number of people trouble on the 200 - 300GB 16Mb Cache Models . These problems have not been experienced by all. Some have had no issues at all, whilst some have not been able to use these drives. Problems fall into 2 categories:-
1) Detection - warm restart issues
2) Data Corruption.

The following Links are aimed at Helping understand the issues & list tweaks that have helped:-
1) Probable Causes - Staggered Spin-up Detection Using Pin 11
2) Neo 2 (7025) €ric's Tweaks - Neo2 + Maxtor 300GB 16MB Cache = Success
3) Neo Platinum (7030) Updated Neo BIOS to fix Maxtor 16Mb problem?  ECH - Eventual Success Neo Platinum
4) Anyone gotten Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB drive to work w. Neo4 Platinum - Unresolved ?
5) Maxtor 10 - Bios Fixes, Drivers & Firmware Updates
6) Maxtor Diamond Max 10 Hard Drive Incompatibility problem Solved 
7) Maxtor 10 & Neo PLat(7030) raidbios 4.71 - 7030170M.BIN
8) Newest SATA II drives maybe causing your boot & Windows installation Problems.

The End ??
The above are only a sample of the threads that exist on this topic - For more info use the search function.

[Supershanks]

From Anyone gotten Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB drive to work w. Neo4 Platinum? Fixed

By Syar2003 « Reply #9 on: 22 March 2005, 22:58:52 »
Maxtor 300 SATAs hd spinup is different from IDE , and my bet goes to the motherboard
All this drives have feature called "Staggered Spin-up Detection" and this is a new definition in sataII.
This can be disabled though
http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/white_papers_technical/staggerd-spin-detection-pin11.pdf

I think this feature is the root of the problem , to me it seems that it isn'r waken alive again the correct way
after its powered down  

[Supershanks]

Nvidia3
Drivers :
Bios
7025
7030

Neo4
Drivers
Bios  K8N Neo4 Platinum v1.2 D.2005-3-1

Update Description - Update NVMM version to 4.79.
- Support Maxtor 300 GB HDD.
- Update NVPXE version to 2.03.0469.
- Update NVRAID version to 4.81.

Unfortunately the bios notes aren't as helpful on other Neo4's it may be that Bios after the v1.2 date include this fix - Don't know.

Firmware:-
as seen from ECH's solution the Firmware update can be successful
see Maxtor K8N restart POST problem  It may also be worth contacting maxtor or MSI quoting

MSI and reference the ticket number I mentioned (108-050104015) when asking for the hard drive bios update.

Note: Re Flashing Drive

ECH
you'll need to upgrade the hdd bios in a system w/ a non-nforce3 sata controller, as Maxtor's tools won't detect the drive or be able to update it as they don't (at least currently) support it... in the updater tool or in PowerMax.

Contacts:-
Maxtor Support Website
support@msi.com.tw