While this trick will not work on all bricked HDDs, if you have a Seagate 7200.11 HDD that is failing because it is convinced it is always in a busy state then you should check out this story on Hack a Day. While the initial step of detaching the circuit board and blocking some connections with piece of cardstock can be handled with easy, it will take some expertise to use an Arduino or serial-TTL converter to issue commands to the HDD controller. It is a good thing that there is a tutorial to walk you through the steps to unbrick your HDD, besides in the worst case scenario your HDD will still be a brick so it is worth a shot.
"Hard drive firmware is about the last place you want to find a bug. But that turned out to be the problem with the Seagate HDD which he was using in a RAID array. It stopped working completely, and he later found out the firmware has a bug that makes the drive think it’s permanently in a busy state. There’s a firmware upgrade available, but you have to apply it before the problem shows its face, otherwise you’re out of luck. Some searching led him to a hardware fix for the problem."
Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
- Western Digital VelociRaptor (WD1000DHTZ) 1 TB @ TechARP
- Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 4TB @ Tweaktown
- HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB SATA III HDD Review @ NikKTech
- Buffalo TeraStation 5200: a fast NAS with a few business features @ Hardware.info
- QNAP TurboNAS TS-119P II NAS Server Review @ NikKTech
- Intel 910 800GB PCI Express Solid State Drive Enterprise RAID @ Tweaktown
- OCZ Agility 4 256GB @ SSD Review
- OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Plextor M3 Pro SSD @ XSReviews
- OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G @ SSD Review
- Kingston DataTraveler Elite 3.0 USB 3.0 @ TechARP
- Kingston 16GB DataTraveler Locker+ G2 USB Drive Review @ Legit Reviews
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not any more