Maxtor N40P Error

A common failure with the Maxtor N40P family of drives is firmware corruption. On these particular drives there is nothing the end user can do to correct the problem, and it is also not a problem that many (if any) computer repair companies are equipped to handle. When these drives have firmware corruption, it manifests itself by simply displaying the drive information as N40P in the BIOS, instead of the full model information. At this point, user data is completely inaccessible, and the firmware corruption much be corrected.

The firmware, also known as the System Area of the drive, is essentially the operating system for the hard drive. It controls every bit of the functionality of the drive. Without the System Area, it would be like having a computer without a hard drive or operating system, pretty useless. In Maxtor N40P drives, it is common to find the G-List table corrupted. The G-List (growth list) is an adaptive table that stores the location of bad sectors on the drive, so that the drive knows not to write data to those sectors. If this becomes corrupted, it needs to be rebuilt with specialized software and equipment made specifically for accessing the System Area of the hard drive. Once the table has been rebuilt, in nearly all cases the data is accessible and the recovery process can be completed.

It is important to note that in the event your drive has a symptom such as this, that simply swapping out the PCB, or controller board, will have no effect on making the data accessible. The unique adaptives for the drive are not stored on the PCB for this particular family of drives. You will need to contact a data recovery professional. We can help you get your data back from this type of failure. Simply give us a call a 1-800-717-8974 and we'll be happy to help you.