www.deadharddrive.com

muzak · Active contributor Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 8

I am not sure what is going on with my drive but this site gives me hope that it may be fixable. First, I am not sure if it is a mechanical or electrical failure?

I was working on a friend’s mac with my external hard drive, I ejected my drive, thinking all was safe I unplugged it. I received this error “The device you removed was not properly put away. Data might have been lost or damaged. Before you unplug your device, you must first select its icon in the Finder and choose Eject from the File menu.”
Then to add insult to injury my friend accidentally knocked my external hard drive.

Now, my drive will now not be recognized by the computer and it makes a “beep” sound every ten seconds or so.

Video of the problem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXFKlSQXF3A

I checked the cables, taken the drive out of its external enclosure and plugged it directly into the computer but to no avail.

Is there away to check a non booting disk using disk utilities or some other software? If so, how?

2. I would like to try a logic board swap
The drive is
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
300 gb
Firmware: 3.AAH
P/N: 98D044-304
Site Code: TK

I have another Seagate Barracuda 7200.9, it has the same firmware, but different P/N, size and site code. Would it still work? Should one even do a board swap if failed drive is not completely dead? i.e. making noises, spinning slowly?

3. The freezer option?

Great site and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

muzak · Active contributor Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 8

I tried the freezer but it didn't help.

Someone said the spindle may be stuck, would a logic board swap even help?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXFKlSQXF3A

muzak · Active contributor Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 8

Hard drive drama continued

So I took off the logic board, and underneath, it seems to be burnt/fried.

video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcdbYKNhiY

I then swapped the board with a 400gb Seagate everything was different except the firmware. The beeping did stop, however the computer still wouldn't recognize the drive. In fact it is doing the same as the original logic board and won't get pass the loading screen in win xp, the screen freezes when the bar is filled).

I'm not sure if this is a good sign or bad, next step is try the exact same model.

ellishnoo · Active contributor Joined: 12 Nov 2007 Posts: 7

I wouldnt worry about the message data maybe lost do not disconnect without clicking the icon, my pc is always say this when I turn off the external hard drive without loging it out, it just if you were in the middle of something the data wont be saved.
The sounds you hear now are worrying, as IM not sure changing the pcb will help, its quite tough, it sound like you may have damaged the motor, have you got precious data you need to recover, if so, look on internet for prog get data back, remember to get ntfs or fat depending on your drives configuration,once one of my drives was making realy bad sounds and the motor kept on stopping working, and wouldnt be recognised, I used get data back, but had to do small scans, then I had to leave the drive for a week and then it would work again, dont ask me why it had to be a week, odd every technition I talked to said it was impossible to get data back, or that if it stopped working to come back to life again. Also dont put it in the freezer, I have read many success stories, but I dont really believe them, I have heard it can work for a few hours but the drive is dead forever afterwards, its only really useful if you fried your pcb board, and then even after that, you cant believe all you read, I have read more negative posts about this than anything else. The PCB swop may work, I have spoke on line to may who it has, although I havent achieved it yet, but get data back is one to try if you need to recover data.
Good luck elli

muzak · Active contributor Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 8

Thanks elli,

But can Get Data Back work if my computer will not recognize the drive?

happyhappy · Deadharddrive regular Joined: 14 Jan 2006 Posts: 22

It might. You install GetDataBack with the dead drive disconnected, then shut down your PC, attach the dead drive and reboot. GDB looks for any drives that were not attached when it was installed, and its possible it can detect a drive irrespective of whether the bios recognizes it.

I suggest trying it. The trial is free and does everything the full version does except enable actual recovery. For that you need to pay for a license key. If you do try it and it finds data, I strongly recommend that you be ready to have somewhere you can recover to because you may never get another chance.

You can check GDB out at http://www.runtime.org.

beemer737 · Posted once Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 1

I have the same drive, same issue. My symptom is the computer does not recognize the drive, and it makes a small clicking noise when on. I called seagate, it's under warranty but Iwant the photos on the drive, it's only got 10 hours on it. seagate data recovery wants $700 to look at it, and up to $3000 to recover!!! I opened it and the drive spins freely, it apears as the drive reader is just clicking at the inner lock, I can manually unlock the reader bars and move them, but they always go back to parked and clicking. Any place I can get a drive control board?

It may be the motor, I can stop the disks by lightly pressing on the reader bar, maybe a bad motor, and if so, any way to replace that?

My last option is to buy another drive, and swap the platters into it, anyone do that with success?