Major HDD Issue
  • JakelstrJakelstr
    Hey guys:

    My 500GB Seagate (SATA) just up and died the other day.

    Here's what I know:
    It still spins, and the read/write head still moves
    The SATA port/cable are fine and work with other hard drives.
    Putting it in the freezer did nothing helpful
    Seagate "Seatools" gets locked up at "scanning for devices" when this HDD is connected
    I've had it in 2 computers, and both of their BIOS's freeze for quite a while trying to decide what to do about the drive; it does not appear in BIOS to either computer once they unfreeze.
    Windows cannot see the drive if i run Vista from my other HDD.

    Any ideas what to do? It would seem to me that if the electronics work well enough to operate the 2 motors inside that they would work well enough to even identify the drive for the BIOS, but I guess I'm wrong there. There is literally no reason for this. No power outages or other shocks to the drive. The very last thing I did was shutdown my computer in a graceful manner. It hasn't been hanging/thrashing or showing any symptoms of being sick lately.

    I've had it for 6 months to a year, I honestly can't remember.

    Thanks, jakelstr
  • CallumJCallumJ
    Do you have access to a USB -> SATA adaptor, maybe try mounting it externally while in Windows? (It's a long shot but worth giving it a go if you have the adaptor)
  • JakelstrJakelstr
    It turns out that certain Seagate drives (specifically my model with my firmware) have a known problem that causes them to randomly die on startup. Joy.
  • kreitjekreitje
    Well that's not good. I think your best shot is as cj stated. Hook it up and mount it like a pen drive.
    Hello World!
  • CallumJCallumJ
    I've always put Seagate and WD in high regard. I thought it was Maxtor that made terrible drives, though Seagate did acquire Maxtor so maybe your HDD was made at a Maxtor factory?
  • JakelstrJakelstr
    Seagate admits that this is a problem, and they are being good sports about it.

    From what i've heard, they will pay to ship the drive to a data recovery facility where it will have its firmware forcibly re-written. Hopefully, the data on the drive is still there.

    Essentially, the drive's firmware contains code that locks the drive under certain (test) conditions, and they never removed this code from the prototype drives. The drive stops identifying itself, to BIOSs and to USB/SATA connectors. So, in the real world, its rare but it does happen that these conditions are met and the only thing to do is force a firmware onto it, something that no standard PC BIOS can do.

    I won't know till Monday though, unless email support stays open over the weekend.

    jakelstr
  • ddreierddreier
    Hopefully your drive fell under the "we'll ship it for free" category.
  • JakelstrJakelstr
    It did. They shipped it over-night air to their facility, repaired it, and shipped it UPS ground back to me. All data intact. Works great.
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