ST31500341AS 1.5 TB steady buzzing (seeking?) sound

[rfedeleo]

Hello,
My drive is a Seagate 1.5 TB Barracuda. I've been scouring the web to see what can be done.

It's not the click of death that I see being posted everywhere but what it is, is when the drive is powered up there is a steady buzz sound. Such as "bzzzzz" then stops for a couple seconds, then "bzzzzzz" again, etc. It seems to go on for about 5 minutes like this and eventually will stop.

WHen I do a Device scan on Windows 7 Device Manager it finds the drive but if I try to initiatlize the drive from Disk Management, I get an error about "could not be performed because of device IO error"

I downloaded the windows based HDDSCAN from this site and am able to perform the Surface Tests for Verify and Read. The SMART tests do not work.

Since it is not the Click of Death do you think swapping out the PCB might do the trick? At this point I'm willing to try anything to get some data back short of spending hundereds of dollars of course. I'm looking on ebay now for a similar drive model to try swapping the PCB and if that doesn't work go for the dreaded platter swap procedure. The data is for a friend that has written the drive off as a lost cause but I thought I could surprise him if I get their data back.

Thanks

[ppumkin]

swapping pcb will not help.
ddi or dc will help- but you dont have that... sooo.. stop scanning and torturing the drive further until you know what todo-
seems like bad sectors- you lucky that it shows in windows! do some more research.
i would suggest sector-by-sector imaging first.. use your favourite search engine

[drc]

Sounds like a stuck spindle to me.

[ppumkin]

I downloaded the windows based HDDSCAN from this site and am able to perform the Surface Tests for Verify and Read. The SMART tests do not work.

With a stuck spinde will hddscan perform veriy and read normally? Smart not showing because bad mod?

But its a valid question.. does the drive spin up?

[rfedeleo]

Yes the drive does spin up. I am able to the HDDSCAN and do a Surface Test.

[drc]

Ah. Missed that part.

So... what is the result of your surface test?

[Russwinters]

I would say:


A: The spindle is getting ready to bite the dust


B: The Head/s are getting ready to bite the dust



While it may not be clicking, the buzz you are hearing could be the heads reading "dirty". Not literally dirty, but they are not reading so well.

[qqlove008]

这是最近常见的一个故障，是电机抱死造成的。如果抱得很死，需要开盘换电机。

[hddguy]

这是最近常见的一个故障，是电机抱死造成的。如果抱得很死，需要开盘换电机。

Just what I was going to say