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ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 6th, 2018, 18:57

Hello, all.

I have Seagate ST1000DM003 that is, as the title says, a total brick at this point. I used the drive as a backup for movies and whatnot. It's not a high priority, but I would like to get the stuff off it if I can.


1CH162-021
FW: HP34

The drive worked fine. Then one day I plugged it in to do a backup and pfft. Nothing. No beeps, no clicks, no spinning. Just totally dead. I thought that maybe, maaaaybe I heard a faint crackling when I first plugged it in. I could very well have imagined it or it could have been a bag being moved by my box fan. I don't know.

Thinking it could be the PCB, I searched around and found a drive with the same PN, board number and FW version as well as the same site location. The SN and Date codes were different. I thought I might get lucky and I could swap out the board and it would work. Of course as I am posting this, that did not happen. I had suspected I would have to have the ROM swapped, but I did think that the drive would spin at the very least, but it did not. This lead me to believe that perhaps it's something more serious so I thought I'd ask you pros.

The PCB shows no signs of any damage. No scorch marks or bubbling. I tested the diodes with my DMM (it has a diode setting) and I get .578/OL on one and .644/OL on the other. Testing the leads on the mother itself, I get the same 2.8 ohms across all couplings, 1-2, 1-3 and 2-3.

Am I wrong that it should at least spin with the new PCB? I know it's good, the drive I took it from worked fine. Can anyone tell me if the TVS diodes are within spec? Anything else I can test for before giving up?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 7th, 2018, 13:29

You should try to get a terminal log to check what's wrong.

Are you SURE 100% of no sounds or internal movement?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 8th, 2018, 15:30

Spildit wrote:
maude wrote:Am I wrong that it should at least spin with the new PCB?


You are not wrong, it should spin with the donor PCB even if ROM is not native ...

You can test the other way, place the PCB of the damaged drive on the donor drive .... It should spin ...

If the damaged drive didn't spin even with a new PCB with the ROM of that donor PCB that rules out damage to the ROM code as well.

ROM code can get damaged or have wrong checksums and drive will not spin, but if you tested the drive with the donor PCB and it still doesn't spin most likely you have damage on the pre-amp (inside drive) and it's not repairable by yourself.

You need to use the service of a professional data recovery firm to do a head stack replacement inside a HEPA 100 aseptic room ...


I haven't put the "bad" PCB into the good drive. I have read there is a chance it could damage the drive and I didn't want to end up with two bricks on my hands. I'll give it a shot.

If it is a pre-amp, is that just a random fail or is there perhaps something I might have done to cause it? It's never been dropped anything of the sort. The drive itself actually has very low miles. That's why the sudden fail confuses me a bit. Perhaps the power source caused it? I used it externally. Maybe I should invest on another enclosure.

pclab wrote:You should try to get a terminal log to check what's wrong.

Are you SURE 100% of no sounds or internal movement?


I don't have an adapter to get those numbers. It's definitely dead. I've stuck my ear right to it. Nothing.

Thank you both for taking the time to reply.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 9th, 2018, 14:58

Spildit wrote:Seagate drives are junk (F3 Arch) even more DM series ... They die fast from nothing ... Even if you do not do anything wrong to them ...

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2521

Just don't use that junk.


This experience has me convinced.

I swapped the "bad" board to the good drive. Nothing. No spin, no anything on the mechanical side. It shows up in disk management as 4gb, same as it does on the old drive. The good board shows up the same on the "bad" drive. 4GB uninitialized. I put the good board in the good drive and it spins right up.

In summation:
Old board + Old drive (original state) = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
New board + Old drive = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
Old board + New drive = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
New board + New drive = Fully functional (for now).

So either this model will not spin without the rom transplant or there was something wrong with both the PCB and the drive itself originally... In 3 out of 4 scenarios it appears to not see the drive itself.

I suppose I've done all I can without a COM adapter.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 11th, 2018, 18:40

Having the time to really look at this drive, I have noticed that there is indeed a very, very faint crackling sound whenever the power is supplied to it. You can only hear it if you have your ear near the PCB when power is supplied. There are two short bursts of crackling/buzz noice, hardly noticeable unless the room is quiet. Nothing spins or anything. Just power -> bzzzt, bzzzt -> Nothing.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 4:30

Probably motor stuck or heads stuck then...

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 8:37

pclab wrote:Probably motor stuck or heads stuck then...


It does appear to be a head issue as yourself and the kind Spildit have assessed. I stuck a card between the pins and footings of the motor and it still produced the same clickety buzz. I would guess that because of the way these Seagate drives park the head, it became stuck (god knows why) and is thus preventing the motor from spinning at all. Smart in the sense that if you want your data back (from Seagate, naturally), the head is less likely to tear up the platter?

In any case, it's gone past the point a layman can fix it. Thanks for the help.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 15:08

maude wrote:In summation:
Old board + Old drive (original state) = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
New board + Old drive = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
Old board + New drive = No spin and 4gb uninitialized in DM.
New board + New drive = Fully functional (for now).

maude wrote:Having the time to really look at this drive, I have noticed that there is indeed a very, very faint crackling sound whenever the power is supplied to it. You can only hear it if you have your ear near the PCB when power is supplied. There are two short bursts of crackling/buzz noice, hardly noticeable unless the room is quiet. Nothing spins or anything. Just power -> bzzzt, bzzzt -> Nothing.

maude wrote:
pclab wrote:Probably motor stuck or heads stuck then...
I stuck a card between the pins and footings of the motor and it still produced the same clickety buzz.

AISI, these symptoms are inconsistent. If the motor is disconnected, then where is the buzz coming from?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 16:57

fzabkar wrote:AISI, these symptoms are inconsistent. If the motor is disconnected, then where is the buzz coming from?


Without opening it, I do not know. It sounds vaguely like a motor trying to spin, which is why I tried the card thing. It almost sounds as if it comes from the PCB itself, which doesn't make sense, and it does it with the good board, too. The kicker is I used a piece of card to block the footings of the head pins (I'm not sure the proper name at the moment) and it still did it.

I took a rough audio of it and looped it 3 times. It makes the noise twice and then nothing. It won't do it again until power is removed and reapplied. Ignore the shuffle in the background, it's just me plugging and unplugging.
Attachments
st1000dm003noise.zip
(157.26 KiB) Downloaded 353 times

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 17:03

Doesn’t sound like a typical stiction sound to me.

Very weird.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 18:35

2 sounds are heard.
One that belongs to the arm of the heads.
The other is a continuous sound that seems to be from the engine to a piece that rubs against the plates, I would say that something is stuck in a dish.
But it is very rare for that sound to occur if there is no power to the engine. Can you put an image of what you have covered?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 19:33

mhp666 wrote:2 sounds are heard.
One that belongs to the arm of the heads.
The other is a continuous sound that seems to be from the engine to a piece that rubs against the plates, I would say that something is stuck in a dish.
But it is very rare for that sound to occur if there is no power to the engine. Can you put an image of what you have covered?


You might be hearing background noise from the room. That rattle is the only only sound from the drive. It is very faint.

I used a picture from hddrecovery.com and circled the areas I blocked with a piece of card stock (not at the same time, obviously). In both cases, it still made the noise.

ETA: I decided to try the PCB off the assembly and darned if that sound isn't coming from the PCB itself. That's not normal, is it? I only tinker around with 2.5" drives and I've never heard that from the board. Blown circuit, maybe? But the good board does the same thing...

The board seems to send proper power. 12v and 5v at the diodes and 1.5v to the 3 motor connections.
Attachments
100717520-rev-b-pcb.jpg

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 12th, 2018, 20:52

I don't hear any sound at all, yet video, audio and system sounds play normally?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 13th, 2018, 8:05

If you hear high frequency sound coming from pcb, it might be due to some voice coils fault on the board.

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 13th, 2018, 8:20

If you hear some other kind of noise coming from pcb, then it might be some bad component near sata power connector as capacitors.
Can you post your real pcb pic in high definition?

Re: ST1000DM003 Completely Dead

December 13th, 2018, 9:23

I tried taking some photos with my phone. All I got was a poorly-lit, blurry mess. As I said in the OP, I managed to find a drive with the same PN and FW because I initially thought it was the PCB. It's a fully functional drive that I managed to get for the same price as people wanted for a PCB. The good board does the same thing. Other than the noise, the bad drive is completely dead. Not a beep, a click or a whir from the HDA, even with the good board.

I suspect the boards themselves are fine, but there are multiple problems with the HDA itself. It's the only thing I can think of. The motor is getting juice, but makes no attempt to spin. It doesn't seem to heat up if left powered for a length of time. The drive was fine when I put it away. I mean, I don't know. There has to be something up with the motor for it to be completely dead if it's getting power. Perhaps one of the leads is burnt off inside near the motor. That seems far-fetched but I'm at a loss.
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