Sorry so much time has gone by since I noticed this post. The problem is the translator module on the drive: this is a firmware module written to a special area of the disk surface during drive manufacure. This can be cured by a special Seagate-specific ATA command; unfortunately, Seagate will not divulge this information to anyone so your only hope, unfortunately, is to submit the drive to Seagate for data recovery. They will charge an arm and a leg for what is essentially a 30-second procedure. Sorry.

Not true.

It has been my expiriance time and again, that if your butt is in a sling, rescuers come out of the woodwork quoting enormous prices with must act now urgency. Especially if the fix is relatively easy. The latest example was a customer that bought a used retrofited CNC machine. A new operator accidently deleted the unprotected FW coded for that specific machine at the time of refit, rendering the machine brain dead. I tracked down the programmer who coded it and he was all with the fake emotions how it was years ago, everything was deleted. He said he could quote recoding from scratch but be prepared for way over $20,000. He was such a lier I could tell. I have never thrown away anything I have created ever. In case its ever needed, or if I needed to review how I did something.

In any case, I tracked down the previous owner and they found a left over disk and print out of the ladder code made for that machine. After reloading the EEprom, the machine was back to normal and I setup the programmers password to protect from further accidents. And I charged them my time that was way less than $20,000. They were very gratefull.

Fine. Good soul. But a free solution for his disk ?

Here a free solution. Buy a new drive even bigger than the one before. wipe the finger prints off the dead one and stick it in the box. Shrink wrap it with window film, food bagger, and a heat gun. Take it back to the store and get your money back. Walk out with a smile, and a new drive instead of a refurbished RMAed piece of snit.

Note, only use this solution if you are tired of being screwed.

No. this is definitely a SCAM.

When a person spends his hard earned dough on a nice drive that croaks, then pays to send it back, then recieves a reconditioned drive that would be illegal in America to sell as new, not to metion all of the wasted time and data dealing with it, that is a scam. We go thru enough crap with all the hassle of the failure that we should get a new drive but still covered under the original warranty time period.

A long time ago, I bought a TV that failed 3 times under warranty till the warrenty expired a year later. Then it blew up again and I threw the damn thing away. It was a total waste of both my time and money, and there is no such thing as a consumer products lemon law. Only for cars.

I'm just a dumb guy. Please tell me where I can find a hard drive that doesn't croak. While you're at it, tell me a car, television, and DVD player that doesn't croak.

I think it's pretty nice... You use a drive for years, then you do something stupid to it to ruin it, you send your USED drive to the manufacturer, and they send you a used, inspected, and refurbished drive. And yet you think this isn't enough.

first thing to point out that these drives run very hot

so its more likely a firmware problem or the headstack has broken down.

try and match up the logic board with your unit

if that does not work its going to be the headstack damaged
possible by a ripple on your pc system

Not hotter than other if properly installed. The trouble is that there's no FREE solution for a screwed fw. And head rep is tough to do. And platter swap without costly tool is IMPOSSIBLE. People want a free repair or get their data for free. This is THE problem.

Addressing the original issue of zero capacity, I have contacted Seagate on several occasions and they have not been forthcoming with a solution for re-generating the translator. Granted this is a vendor-specific command and they don't wish to share it with the world, I suggested that they attempt to put the fix in an .exe file that would accomplish the task. At least that way no one would be able to discover their trade secrets. To no avail. It is obvious from other posts on this forum that this is going to be a common issue. Again I have to state that Seagate's ownership of a data recovery service is a conflict of interest which gives them no incentive to be helpful in matters such as this and should be a red flag to others considering purchasing Seagate drives.

mostly case in DR is not One click then it is OK. So there is no one click solutiona and NO 30 second Done Solution.Sometime you need to know the Meaning of Binary File in HEXA and more. and this is not easy as you think. and OF COURSE WILL COST YOU A LOT. specially for DR expert who spend their time to investigate and invest lot of time and money in their TOOL and equipment.

Translator problem is not the Only problem in Seagate Drive. WDC, Maxtor, IBM and other brand also got problem with translator. AND no any manufacture will speak their technical information about their drive, because this is their property and protected by law. and IF you are the owner of the manufacturer. Do you want to speak your technical detail to the others. I think You know what is your answer.. This is not the fault of the manufacturer.

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I certainly don't expect DR companies, of which we are one, to offer their expertise for nothing; nor do I seek their free advice in this post. I do expect, however, that a drive manufacturer- in this case Seagate- will address an issue which seems to be plaguing one of their new models without forcing people to pay for Seagate data recovery services for what is, in this case, most likely a 30-second, one-click fix.

I have an anecdote right for you

One man came to a dentist to extract bad tooth. So the dentist did it for a one minute. After that the dentist ask the man for a $1000 paymant. The man went angry - "WTF? $1000 for a one-minute-work?". The Dentist answered - "If you prefer I would protract that extraction for 30 minutes"

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Thank you, Doomer. I'll run with your dental analogy: if I bought a set of dentures from that same dentist and after a short time one of the teeth fell out, would I be happy that he offers to replace it quickly (within 30 seconds!) for only $1000? "Gee whiz, doctor, I thought there was a warranty on those dentures?" "Well, yes there is sir, but you certainly don't expect me to work for nothing, do you?" I think I'll look for a new dentist.

I noticed that Doomer didn't exactly deny that it is a one-minute job.

So you cannot do RMA?
I think you didn't try to apply warranty for this drive, did you?
You want you data not the drive. But you didn't buy your data from drive's manufacturer, did you?
BTW you can look for new dentist. I personally don't care

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Analogy explanation: "dentures" = "hard drive"; "teeth" = "data". I wouldn't want someone else's dentures for free on an RMA. Enough said on the subject.

First, I can't agree that I've seen any specific Seagate models fail with a single failure mode more than any model from any other manufacturer. They've been mostly pretty reliable for us.

Second, I can only think of a single time that a manufacturer has released firmware utilities to the marketplace to correct a known problem. And it was the Maxtor compatibilities problem (I think w/ nVidia, but I can't remember).

Third, you are assuming that, if there is a problem, that Seagate hasn't provided a fix to other D/R firms. Just because they haven't shared it with YOU doesn't mean they haven't shared it with others.

Insisting that they have engineering staff ready to share data with anyone that presents themselves as a D/R firm probably isn't going to get us very far.

Exactly
so you lost your teeth and you are blaming dentist for that:)))))) ?
you asked dentist for dentures aka drive you don't ask him for your original teeth aka data
but you want to ask drive's manufacturer for "teeth" aka data
you seem illogical

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