Hi all, a sad Christmas tale of hard disk woe for anyone who would be kind enough to have a read and proffer advice...

As an addendum, the internal Seagate drive that stars in my story – model no. ST31000340AS, firmware LC11 – originally actually issued forth from a LaCie external drive, but since that’s now resting in the bin I figured this is between me and Seagate So, in short, here’s my story...

1. Idiotically plugged the wrong psu in to the LaCie without checking beforehand (urgh, it was a 19v output instead of a 12v). Turned it on, nothing happened (no smoke or sparks, no smell of burning, no brief light, nowt).

2. Plugged correct PSU in. Still nothing happened. Drive totally dead.

3. Figured my data was more important than RMAing drive, so busted the perfect plastic casing and removed shiny Seagate Barracuda 1TB hard disk from within. Figured my PSU cock up had defo destroyed the LaCie’s internal setup but there was a chance the Seagate itself was fine....

4. Replaced the second drive on my home PC with the Seagate and booted. Nothing happens – power flicks on for a millisecond then nada. Swapped a few cables around and same problem; the computer won’t even post to Bios with this disk connected! Disconnect power to the Seagate and everything’s rosy again.

Basically, have I got any chance of getting this drive going again? The HD must be really screwed if it even stops the PC posting, right? There’s no point trying the freezer/oven tricks if the drive is simply dead, but I figured the problem almost certainly rests with the onboard circuitry of the Seagate and read somewhere on the net that if I find the exact same Seagate drive/firmware I might be able to get it working again if I swap their logic boards over – could this work? (Afterthought: apparently this doesn't work from revision 7200.11 onwards - typical!!)

If not, where do I go now? Data retrieval is the final (super costly) option, but might this even not be an option as the drive is utterly dead? ARGH!

Thanks so much for any help.

R

Sounds very much like a PCB problem, if so we can certainly handle this at a sensible price if you require the data.

PM if interested.

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Your drive probably has a shorted 12 TVS (transient voltage suppression) diode. You can desolder it or snip it out with sidecutters. The drive will work quite happily without it, albeit without protection on the corresponding supply rail. Just be sure your power supply is OK.

See the photo of the PCB in this article:

http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html

If you need one of us to help you identify the diode, then upload a photo of your PCB to an image hosting site and post its URL here.

For continued protection, you can replace your diode with an SMBJ12A. These are available from Farnell, Mouser, Digikey.

Hi again all, okay got my Torx, opened her up and had a looksie. Think I've identified the 2 TVSs, but would defo appreciate some confirmation. They're the two single solder chips relatively in the middle of the second shot near the power socket, right? Which one is the likely to be the 12v and which one the 5v?

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/829/seagate1.jpg

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/738/seagate2.jpg

It doesn't look like anything is blatantly burnt out but then I only plugged a 19v PSU in there, and even then only for one try before I realised my error...

I'm still convinced my problem lies with the TVS diodes though, so would my final step be removing said diodes with a minature pliers (again, don't have a solder) and trying the drive in my PC again? Or should I just play it safe and send it to a data repair company?

Decisions...

R

Send it to pcimage, he will help you out for a resonable price.

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Do not simply pull it off with pliers. You will pull more off than you want.

Go to a cheap tool store, you should be able to find a 25-watt pencil soldering iron for £6 or less. You need a pinpoint tip, not a chisel tip.

The "cheap tools from China" store in my neighborhood also has digital multimeters for $4 (or $3 when on sale.) Obviously this is no laboratory instrument, but would be useful enough in a case like this to identify the shorted TVS - you would measure close to 0Ω across the part in both directions.

Step 2 before step 1, if neither TVS is shorted removing them would be a waste of time

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Just an update for closure purposes in case anybody searches this forum and has the same problem down the line. Bought a multimeter and confirmed the 12v TVS diode had indeed shorted, removed it with a soldering iron, booted up and salvaged data! Then decided to buy a replacement 12v diode, soldered it in and - to all intents and purposes - my drive is functioning exactly as before. Result!

Thanks for all the help peeps, what a good resource this and the offical Seagate forum are

Some Disk of 7200.10 does not have Rom on them.

DF

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DF
www.datatracksystem.net

Hi, I took mine out of Lacie too. One day it suddenly warned me to scan and fix coz there might be a bad sector or something so I chose to scan it and it said it's scanned and fixed and there shouldn't be further problem. I was able to access my files find after that but the next day when I turned it back on I can still see the drive saying 400GB free out of 900s GB but there's no files in it anymore when I go in. I bought a Xion hard drive dock hoping it's just Lacie's circuit problem and not the seagate. First it says I/O error ..... so I turn it off and on again the 2nd time it actually works but only for 10 minutes. Now the drive still appears but it's not saying ....GB free out of .... GB anymore. I can't format the drive nor access anything. The hard disk is still working and I don't think it's making any weird noise. Any suggestions? Thanks ^^

Is it an LC15 firmware drive?

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LC11 site code: KRATSG product of Thailand

Quite possibly a firmware issue then.

There is a "McGyver" method on this forum if you don't really care for your data, but it's a cheap fix from a pro AT THIS STAGE if you need your data.

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This thread should help with the "MacGyver" method:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/mes ... 467#M18467

If and when you fix your drive, here are the firmware updates:

Firmware Update for ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS, ST3640330AS, ST3640530AS, ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS, ST31000340AS [207951]:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... cId=207951

Hello,

I have a barracuda seagate 2700.11 ST 100466824
I am new, can you help me out with something? My right one diode is fried and it smels bad. Do i have to delete the diode and solder the up and downs of where the diode was?
Or if i just delete the diode and do not connect anything else it will work?

Hope to get a fast replay, thanks for the help,

Kind regards,

Just remove the diode. If there are no other problems, then the drive should work without it.

Good luck.

Hi! Sorry to resurrect a dead post...but I have the same problem...If you look at shadowman666's second picture the TVS diode (two kinda in the center of the shot, like he said...little to right of center) the TVS diode on the left is burnt out. I'm fairly confident I can solder it out, but I have no idea exactly what to use as a replacement....I saw someone recommended "SMBJ12A" but when I search it seems to come up with different choices for configuration...any advice (or even links) would be appreciated. Again, I know it's a 12V TVS diode, but I am unsure if I need to know anything else before going to radioshack or somewhere to look for a replacement.
Thanks,
Paul

ocnitsa just remove the TVS diodes from the board and "IF" the drive powers up and works recover the data, Don't expect to continue to use the drive without the TVS diodes (no protection from power surges) The forum has a few posts about the replacement part numbers they have been posted use the "search" to find them.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.