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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Can recognize what might cause the sound of this failed hdd?

February 16th, 2013, 10:41

Hi,

My hdd which i had for backup failed without a notice.Can anybody recognize what might cause the problem? head? motor?

It is a seagate 7200.11 1,5tb drive (ST31500341AS). Out of the blue one day it failed.

Specifically, it makes this sound. I power it on, starts to spin up, and within half a second it stops, then there's a endless loop of that until i power it down again.
My computer cannot see in any way the drive anymore,not in disk management, not with any other software.

The first time it failed, i switched it off, actually picked up the enclosure, hold it in a different angle, switched it on and it worked! I powered it off immediately. I tried to reproduce this, it did not work this way anymore.

It's not a problem of the enclosure cause i ve tried with another hdd in it and it works fine
I also opened it up to see if there is something faulty in the pcb which i could identify. it seems fine, i unscrewed it it, cleaned a bit the contacts, and then i put it back together,but nothing changed. I haven't tried to "go deeper".

This series of hdds is prone to problems in general, The firmware in mine is cc1h, which is supposed to be one of the trouble-free ones.
The drive was used in an external enclosure,connected to my computer via usb and powered up only once in a while to back things up.

Anyway, this is all the info i could get.

I joined this forum specifically for that since i am pretty desperate.

Thanx in advance for your time

Re: Can recognize what might cause the sound of this failed

February 18th, 2013, 4:12

Sorry I do not hear the drive spin up.
This means that this is either stiction (<1%) or seized motor (99%).

http://www.northwind.gr/www/j/%CE%91%CE ... F%89%CE%BD (7th sound in Seagate section).

In either case it is not DIY.

Re: Can recognize what might cause the sound of this failed

February 18th, 2013, 9:00

The good news is that both of you are in Greece.

@argotera, I suggest you to contact northwind immediately, I'm sure the will give you the professional answer you need.

Re: Can recognize what might cause the sound of this failed

March 3rd, 2013, 6:33

Hi, I could not find my thread, and i thought that it hadn't been approved so i gave up following it.

I know it; late, but thanx for the replies.

@Northwind Thanx for answering, I had already seen your website, and that particular link, i just wasn't sure.


@blackST,

Yeah, actually i had already checked northwind, but it's pretty far from my location, and i wanted to see if it's a diy job. oh well, I ll store the hdd away till i can afford to take it to the pros.

Re: Can recognize what might cause the sound of this failed

March 3rd, 2013, 7:05

It's not DIY, so your Idea of putting it away until you can afford pro help is a good one :-)
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