hiyo!

I've got a seagate freeagent 1.5 ter that refuses to spin up and makes an intermittent beeping sort of noise. (it sounds pretty similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXavpzAosP0 ) I last used it three weeks ago to watch top gear at a con at which I was vending and it worked fine, no strange noises or anything to indicate there was a problem. I plugged it in about five days ago and noticed the beeping and that the LED failed to light, and hoping it was the enclosure, ordered a new one. today it arrived, so I crossed my fingers, cracked open the freeagent, put the hard drive in the new enclosure, aaandd... same thing. stomach drop.

as far as I know, nothing major happened to the drive in between its last known working status and now. it wasn't dropped, although it did spend some time in a freezing car.

so I've been combing this site and others for information and I'm starting to get an idea of what I might be dealing with, but I thought I'd ask before I do anything stupid or expensive, or a combination of both I'm thinking it could be one of three things:

1. stiction. I've read it can be caused by condensation. apparently the geniuses with whom I attended the con thought it would be a brilliant idea to pack it in the freezing trunk for the lengthy ride home.

2. not enough power. one of the posts I read contained an official reply from seagate which indicated the beeping was caused by insufficient power. I also saw another post that suggested cleaning connection points on the pcb. *shrug*

3. spindle seizure. please no? D:

also worth noting: I'm STUPID lucky enough to have a pretty much identical drive, same model number and firmware revision, in case I need to do a pcb swap. but it's not looking like that's going to be particularly hepful in this case.

the only DIY options I've seen anyone mention for something like this are ziplock + freezer, cleaning the connection points, and percussive maintenance. you don't even need to warn me about that last one

man, I tell you though...I used to be a seagate fangirl, but after this mess? NEVER AGAIN. I've got some seriously irreplaceable stuff on there and absolutely no way to afford data recovery at this point, but I'm doing a damn fine job of keeping a lid on the FURY for the moment, lol. thanks in advance for any replies!

Ria

Sounds like a seized bearing.

Not much you can do yourself. Not a picnic for those who have the capability.

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any idea what could have caused it to just HAPPEN like that?

These drives are very prone to bearing issues. If the last time you used it successfully was before it was moved, it probably just took an unfavorable jolt somewhere along the way. I have seen it happen with bumps that IMO should not have been enough to cause a problem.

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

damn. that's definitely sounding like whoever packed up my stuff while I was in the dealer room dropped it and didn't have the testicular fortitude to tell me. question is, who do I murder first?

so I guess uh... how much would I be looking at, in this case, to try to get my crap back? I don't care about the vast majority of it (movies and music) but I have some seriously irreplaceable photos I had to dump there in a pinch without backing them up elsewhere, and I just can't say "pff screw the drive" knowing that they're on there.

do you suppose I should freezer it for several hours? even if I'm lucky enough for it to only work for ten minutes, it'll help me get the really important stuff off there, or at the very least allow me to assess how much the data is really worth to me.

I don't expect freezing it will un-bend the bearing

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

heh..

I've just now talked to everyone that was around when the drive was being handled and packed, and it has apparently suffered absolutely NO shock. I'm definitely not being lied to.

is there _any_ possible way it could be stiction caused by condensation from sitting in a freezing car for several hours? scratch that, just remembered that the innards of a hard drive are supposedly, by some sorcery, humidity controlled.

well I don't see how freezing or fridging is going to HURT anything, so I'll try it just for the hell of it. maybe grab my mini fridge from home and just park the drive in there XD

thanks for your responses!

If it was in a freezing car, then you already know freezing won't help.
Seagate drives are prone to bearing failure. They don't have to be
dropped, or any other misuse. Sometimes they work for years,
other times they stop at a moments notice.
As jono-ats said, not anything you can do yourself.
It's up to you to decide what your data is worth, and if it is truly
irreplacable. If you have no way of replacing the data, then store
the drive until you can afford data recovery.
If you attempt DIY and you futher damage the drive, the cost of
recovery will go up. (If recovery is possible after an diy attempt)

Very very unlikely to be stiction (like <1%) I'm sorry to say.

We see these everyday seized up. IMHO the platters are too heavy for the spindle.

50% of the time we can free the spindle good enough to read for a while (vibrating quite loudly mind you), but the other 50% the vibration is too bad so we have to abort before platter damage occurs and resort to platter/spindle exchange.

In both cases the operation MUST be perfomed in cleanroom environment.

The former is 5x cheaper than the latter!

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thanks for your reply!

alright, lay it on me - how much am I looking at in either case? :\

yeah... I thought of that after I said but the drive had been room temperature for two weeks by the time I got to it, so I'll probably still try it because, why not, right?

yeah, like I said, I've been a seagate fankid for the last ten years, but after this, never in my life would I think of buying another one. I had a WD once that ran really hot and occasionally made little clicks, but that little champ lasted forever and a half. I think I'll go back to them

realistically, how long can I shelve this thing and still be able to expect to get data off it later?

Drive isn't getting any more dead, you are safe to let it chill for as long as you need.

Price will vary from company to company, just make sure to do your research and somewhere reputable.

i have 3 old quantum maverick drives 270 Mb size

250 mb in windows after partition lol

at least 10 years powered down in the attic

and when i turnd it on one still has windows 95 the other still has my old games and other information that i forgot over time

so i think its safe to leave it protected for several years because that if mine survived with the information ( the only diference is that i can power it on lol) i think yours will be better

old tecnology is great

even the old conner drive from 1990 spins up!! but says failed in computer bah