# Seagate sudden death syndrome..........



## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Hi all,

I have a fairly old Seagate 500GB IDE drive in an external USB caddy which I have been using without any problem now for some time. The drive has shown no sign of failure whatsoever but today for some reason it just died. The first thing I suspected was the USB caddy's pcb failure so I put another disc in and it works fine so its deffinately not the caddy.

As for the disc, when it first stopped working it wasnt spinning up, however it now seems to spin up just fine. Trouble is Windows (7 Ultimate x64) isnt seeing it in either My Computer or My Computer/Manage/Disk Management or System/Device manager/Disk Drives. Its deffinately connected and deffinately spinning up. I am hearing no strange noises atm although there were a few clicks and whirs earlier.

I am not too bothered about the cost of replacing the drive but I have a folder on it with all of my work invoices etc on it which I cant afford to lose.

I know, back up back up but like so many just never got around to it 

I have downloaded a couple of data recovery apps but they are not even seeing the disk so is there anything else I could be doing apart from writing "I must always back up" 1000 times on a few sheets of A4 

Thanks in advance!


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## Frick (Sep 29, 2012)

Have you tried connecting it straight to the motherboard?


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Frick said:


> Have you tried connecting it straight to the motherboard?



Hi Frick,

I have to be honest I havent simply because I am convinced that the caddy to which it is connected is 100% fine although I had planned to try this tomorrow when I am a little less wound up so to speak.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Sep 29, 2012)

Make sure there is no dust in the disk, and make sure you really ram the plug in, some of these old disks can have looser connections.


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## erocker (Sep 29, 2012)

ALMOSTunseen said:


> Make sure there is no dust in the disk



Considering they are sealed, there is no dust in the disk.


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## ALMOSTunseen (Sep 29, 2012)

erocker said:


> Considering they are sealed, there is no dust in the disk.


Can't you get dust in that little hole that helps keep positive pressure or something in the disk?
And can't the connector get dust on/in them? Or scratches?


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## Frick (Sep 29, 2012)

ALMOSTunseen said:


> Can't you get dust in that little hole that helps keep positive pressure or something in the disk?
> And can't the connector get dust on/in them? Or scratches?



the connectors can get damaged but no dust inside the disks. or scratches unless iy physically break down but that would be heard.

i'd connect the drive to the motherboard just to make sure.


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## cdawall (Sep 29, 2012)

You can try replacing the PCB on the HDD itself and see if the I/O portion of the seagate PCB died. They are available on ebay.


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## Sasqui (Sep 29, 2012)

Frick said:


> i'd connect the drive to the motherboard just to make sure.



+1 Given the importance of the data, do that first.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> +1 Given the importance of the data, do that first.



Thanks everyone for your input s'far 

Deffinately going to plug this drive directly into the mainboard in the morning.

If this fails then I will start looking for a donor drive to see if I cant get it working some other way. Looked around for HDD tools for replacing heads, swapping platters etc and nearly fell off my chair at the prices!


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## ALMOSTunseen (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Thanks everyone for your input s'far
> 
> Deffinately going to plug this drive directly into the mainboard in the morning.
> 
> If this fails then I will start looking for a donor drive to see if I cant get it working some other way. Looked around for HDD tools for replacing heads, swapping platters etc and nearly fell off my chair at the prices!


If there's a certified PC repair place near you, they may be able to take a look at it, and maybe crack er open to see what the problem is.


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## cdawall (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Thanks everyone for your input s'far
> 
> Deffinately going to plug this drive directly into the mainboard in the morning.
> 
> If this fails then I will start looking for a donor drive to see if I cant get it working some other way. Looked around for HDD tools for replacing heads, swapping platters etc and nearly fell off my chair at the prices!



I would replace the PCB or do the freezer trick way before I tried swapping heads and platters.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

cdawall said:


> I would replace the PCB or do the freezer trick way before I tried swapping heads and platters.



Forgot to mention this, I have tried the freezer trick for varying degrees of time from a few minutes to around 45 mins but without any success.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Just a thought and this may or not be of any importance.

This problem occured while iI was out this afternoon. When I got home, the PC had shut itself down by itself. It was only when I booted up the computer that this problem became apparent.


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## ShiBDiB (Sep 29, 2012)

Did your power go out? Could have shorted the (I dunno hard drive lingo) connector thingy and left your actual data and mechanical working of the hd unscathed


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## Frick (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> If this fails then I will start looking for a donor drive to see if I cant get it working some other way. Looked around for HDD tools for replacing heads, swapping platters etc and nearly fell off my chair at the prices!



That is not something you do on your own. You need a clean room for that afaik.



ALMOSTunseen said:


> If there's a certified PC repair place near you, they may be able to take a look at it, and maybe crack er open to see what the problem is.



Nononononono and no. No. There are companies that specilize in these things, and they are not your local computer shop. Here an analyze usually is close to $200, an actual restoration (if it's a fairly simple problem) $1000 and upwards.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Keep thinking of other bits of usefull info. If I boot the PC up with the faulty external drive connected the boot process hangs, unplug the drive and the boot up process continues. Any relevance?


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## Frick (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Keep thinking of other bits of usefull info. If I boot the PC up with the faulty external drive connected the boot process hangs, unplug the drive and the boot up process continues. Any relevance?



You have the jumpers set properly? If yes, it's even more dead and it's time for shopping around for PCB's.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Frick said:


> You have the jumpers set properly? If yes, it's even more dead and it's time for shopping around for PCB's.



Its an external drive with no jumpers. Its been this way since I first bought it and this has had no effect on its performance so I doubt it would all of a sudden become a problem


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## Frick (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Its an external drive with no jumpers. Its been this way since I first bought it and this has had no effect on its performance so I doubt it would all of a sudden become a problem



Ohh ooooh I thought you had it connected to the motherboard. Sorry, my bad.


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## Mighty Boosh (Sep 29, 2012)

Out of frustration I took the lid off of it and I reckon its kaputt! There is a circular score mark in the middle of the top platter where the head appears to have been rubbing on the same spot for some time. I guess my data is lost


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 29, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Out of frustration I took the lid off of it and *I reckon its kaputt! *There is a circular score mark in the middle of the top platter where the head appears to have been rubbing on the same spot for some time. I guess my data is lost



Once the top comes off then its dead.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 30, 2012)

Lesson to Learn, Always back up to a Optical or Tape Or USB Media and Put it away.


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## Frick (Sep 30, 2012)

Mighty Boosh said:


> Out of frustration I took the lid off



You mean the actual HDD? No no no then you certinaly is screwed. Didn't you read what I said before?



brandonwh64 said:


> Once the top comes off then its dead.



Ayep.



eidairaman1 said:


> Lesson to Learn, Always back up to a Optical or Tape Or USB Media and Put it away.



Or online.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 30, 2012)

I still dont trust the cloud for anything.



Frick said:


> You mean the actual HDD? No no no then you certinaly is screwed. Didn't you read what I said before?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## EiSFX (Oct 2, 2012)

the problem with once taking the cover off the HDD is 1 you let dust get in to the HDD its self you can put it back together and have it working again ONLY if you make sure there is no dust or anything in the HDD and you have to torque the screws down to the exact spec for your certain HDD yes the screws that hold down the HDD top plate are torqued to an exact amount

like by watching this video will show you
Here's one reason to never take your hard driv...

But by following this video if you do it right you can take the cover off and on if done right it will still work


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

EiSFX said:


> the problem with once taking the cover off the HDD is 1 you let dust get in to the HDD its self you can put it back together and have it working again ONLY if you make sure there is no dust or anything in the HDD and you have to torque the screws down to the exact spec for your certain HDD yes the screws that hold down the HDD top plate are torqued to an exact amount
> 
> like by watching this video will show you
> Here's one reason to never take your hard driv...
> ...



He already posted the below comment, indicating the drive had a fatal head crash and probably lots of black dust already spinning around in the drive.  Opening it, or dropping in the garbage disposal would yeild the same result.



Mighty Boosh said:


> Out of frustration I took the lid off of it and I reckon its kaputt! There is a circular score mark in the middle of the top platter where the head appears to have been rubbing on the same spot for some time. I guess my data is lost


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## EiSFX (Oct 2, 2012)

Yes i know it dead but just stating that if you have the proper tools your self taking the cover off the HDD will not always instantly make the drive not work


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

EiSFX said:


> Yes i know it dead but just stating that if you have the proper tools your self taking the cover off the HDD will not always instantly make the drive not work



I don't disagree with that.  After any dust has settled on the platters or head, it probably wouldn't last very long.  I have a few older hard drives that I'll probably never use, it's tempting to see how long one really would last


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## OneMoar (Oct 2, 2012)

EiSFX said:


> Yes i know it dead but just stating that if you have the proper tools your self taking the cover off the HDD will not always instantly make the drive not work



maby if you have a level 4 clean room and a bio-hazard suite 
me shooting you in the head MAY not instantly kill you
sounds like the drive is junk time to toss it


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 2, 2012)

OneMoar said:


> maby if you have a level 4 clean room and a bio-hazard suite
> me shooting you in the head MAY not instantly kill you
> sounds like the drive is junk time to toss it



ive seen HDDs window modded without clean rooms


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## Kreij (Oct 2, 2012)

Since you have it open, you could take a really powerful magnifying glass and read all the bits on the platters, convert it all to hex and look at it in a hex editor.

If that seems like to much work, just throw it away.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 2, 2012)

Kreij said:


> Since you have it open, you could take a really powerful magnifying glass and read all the bits on the platters, convert it all to hex and look at it in a hex editor.
> 
> If that seems like to much work, just throw it away.



polarities and induction at its best LMAO


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

Kreij said:


> Since you have it open, you could take a really powerful magnifying glass and read all the bits on the platters, convert it all to hex and look at it in a hex editor.
> 
> If that seems like to much work, just throw it away.



You're just plain cruel.


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## OneMoar (Oct 2, 2012)

sad part is I am betting it was just the drive controller but now that hes gone a listened to the n00bs on this board its pretty much toast and people wonder why I tell other members to shut the frack up


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

OneMoar said:


> sad part is I am betting it was just the drive controller but now that hes gone a listened to the n00bs on this board its pretty much toast and people wonder why I tell other members to shut the frack up



Even if he hadn't opened it up, the outcome would be the same.  Lost bits... no more bytes.


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## Kreij (Oct 2, 2012)

It's been awhile since I've looked into HDDs. Do any still use landing zones for the heads (as opposed to full head retraction)? If so, the worn area could have been a landing zone and it was just the controller board that went bad. Cracking the lid open is always last on the list of things to try.

Mute point now, however.


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

Kreij said:


> It's been awhile since I've looked into HDDs. Do any still use landing zones for the heads (as opposed to full head retraction)? If so, the worn area could have been a landing zone and it was just the controller board that went bad. Cracking the lid open is always last on the list of things to try.
> 
> Mute point now, however.



Moot, I think you meant.  And yes, if it's already self-destructed, spinning little bits of metal throughout the HDD, then any data recovery will be tough (perhaps not impossible though).

I was curious about landing zone, so looked it up...

From Wiki:



> Landing zonesA landing zone is an area of the platter usually near its inner diameter (ID), where no data is stored. This area is called the Contact Start/Stop (CSS) zone. Disks are designed such that either a spring or, more recently, rotational inertia in the platters is used to park the heads in the case of unexpected power loss. In this case, the spindle motor temporarily acts as a generator, providing power to the actuator.
> 
> Spring tension from the head mounting constantly pushes the heads towards the platter. While the disk is spinning, the heads are supported by an air bearing and experience no physical contact or wear. In CSS drives the sliders carrying the head sensors (often also just called heads) are designed to survive a number of landings and takeoffs from the media surface, though wear and tear on these microscopic components eventually takes its toll. Most manufacturers design the sliders to survive 50,000 contact cycles before the chance of damage on startup rises above 50%. However, the decay rate is not linear: when a disk is younger and has had fewer start-stop cycles, it has a better chance of surviving the next startup than an older, higher-mileage disk (as the head literally drags along the disk's surface until the air bearing is established). For example, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series of desktop hard disks are rated to 50,000 start-stop cycles, in other words no failures attributed to the head-platter interface were seen before at least 50,000 start-stop cycles during testing.[101]
> 
> Around 1995 IBM pioneered a technology where a landing zone on the disk is made by a precision laser process (Laser Zone Texture = LZT) producing an array of smooth nanometer-scale "bumps" in a landing zone,[102] thus vastly improving stiction and wear performance. This technology is still largely in use today, predominantly in desktop and enterprise (3.5 inch) drives. In general, CSS technology can be prone to increased stiction (the tendency for the heads to stick to the platter surface), e.g. as a consequence of increased humidity. Excessive stiction can cause physical damage to the platter and slider or spindle motor.



And here:  http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/set/ideLanding-c.html



> Landing Zone
> 
> This setting specifies the cylinder to which the BIOS should send the heads of the hard disk when the machine is to be turned off. This is where the heads will "land" when they spin down. Modern drives (in fact, virtually every drive made in at least the last five or so years) automatically park the heads in a special area that contains no data when the power is turned off. Therefore this setting is meaningless and is typically ignored.
> 
> Most BIOSes set this value to be the largest cylinder number of the logical geometry specified for the disk when you autodetect. So if the drive has 6,136 logical cylinders, the landing zone will be set to 6,135. In any event a modern IDE drive will ignore this setting and autopark by itself.


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## Kreij (Oct 2, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> Moot, I think you meant.



Yes, you are right. Typing faster than thinking gets me every time.
In this case, however, I had no more to say so "mute" works pretty well too. 

Making a little negative pressure "clean box" for playing with HDDs would be a fun little project.
You could probably use a vacuum and some Heppa filters and it might work sufficiently.
Just pondering.


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## Sasqui (Oct 2, 2012)

Kreij said:


> Making a little negative pressure "clean box" for playing with HDDs would be a fun little project.
> You could probably use a vacuum and some Heppa filters and it might work sufficiently.
> Just pondering.



I've torn apart many hard drives (I like the magnets!).  In some, there has been a small pouch of non-woven filter type materials leading to an opening... so I think they are supposed to breath, and it appears the moving layer of air on the platter acts as a fan. (perhaps for cooling?)

Just made me think of one of Tesla's inventions, a motor that used the same prinicple in reverse.

Edit... what you describe sounds a lot like a sand blasting enclosure, without the sand blasting of course.


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## Kreij (Oct 2, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> Edit... what you describe sounds a lot like a sand blasting enclosure, without the sand blasting of course.



Yes. Cut a couple of holes and tightly glue some rubber gloves so you can reach in.
You would want to clean any tools that would be used, and pressurize the box before opening the drive, but it should work reasonably well.


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## Frick (Oct 2, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> ive seen HDDs window modded without clean rooms



But they didnt just do it anywhere either. It has to be clean.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 2, 2012)

Frick said:


> But they didnt just do it anywhere either. It has to be clean.



well of course, particulate level has to be under a certain percentage or under a certain density per square inch


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