Seagate Barracuda not recognized -- what are my options?

[JHW]

Hello experts,

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1 TB HDD that was the main hard drive in my main home computer recently "died". On booting up the computer, the HDD makes all the usual sounds (no unusual clicking or humming) and spins up, but it is not recognized in the BIOS or in "SeaTools" from Seagate.

I tested the drive with another SATA cable and also tested another known-good HDD in my computer to rule out any problems with the cable or the computer itself.

I am trying to get a ball-park estimate of what might be wrong with the drive and how much it would cost to recover the data (ironically, most of the drive was backed up, but there is about 10 GB of files that I do need to recover). I presume that since the drive spins up and doesn't make any odd noises, it's not a problem with the drive heads or platters but possibly with the PCB or the firmware ... and that this would lead to a relatively simpler (cheaper) recovery option.

I am not planning to do a DIY repair, but I want to get an idea of what the likely causes are before I go to a data-recovery shop.

Any ideas or guidance?

Many thanks
JHW in Toronto, Canada

[CK]

What is the model (i.e. ST31000xxxxx) and what is the firmware revision on your drive?

[JHW]

What is the model (i.e. ST31000xxxxx) and what is the firmware revision on your drive?

The model is ST31000340AS and the firmware is SD15.

Thanks

[loki]

Sounds like the Seagate firmware bug.

Try searching lb0 & bsy.

Loki

[CK]

Your drive is likely suffering from a common System Area issue.

As Loki suggests, use the search function, you'll find lots of info here...

[JHW]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not planning on doing a DIY repair on this drive (I'm a total newb) but just wanted to get an idea of what is involved. It's somewhat of a relief to find out that this is a known issue with Seagate drives. According to the Seagate website this drive is still under warranty and so I'm going to call them or their data recovery service, and see what they can do for me.

[Alexii]

There is a chance seagate i365 will do the recovery for free. U can call me at ill explain the situation. Ill pm the number.

[pclab]

It could be interesting to know how much will Seagate charge for this.

[Alexii]

they should not charge at all. SD15 is an issue they fix for free. The only problem is that if there is anything else wrong with the drive ( like bads for example ) they charge. I send a guy ,who came to our shop, to I365 to get his data for free , they claimed that the drive has also bads and sent him a 900$ quote. He refused and they bricked the FW back before sending it to him , since the drive is returned in the SAME state as received... I ended up doing the job and the bads where not that crazy at all ( 1 partition was slightly corrupt ) Happened several times to different ppl.

[pcimage]

Sounds like the Seagate firmware bug.

Try searching lb0 & bsy.

Loki

Sounds perfectly feasible.

[JHW]

I wanted to update everyone (for posterity and future searches) about what ended up happening. On Alexii's advice I called Seagate, and to make a long story short, they confirmed the firmware issue and fixed the drive without charge. I live a fairly short drive from the local Seagate facility so the turn-around was very fast.

Thanks for the tips and especially to Alexii for the assistance.