Seagate 2TB spins but can NOT "see it" under My computer

[Archos1]

Ok... I was looking through this forum and came across this post. Its about 4 years old so I am hoping that there has been some sort of DIY solution since this person posted their issue. Because it is exactly like my issue. EXACTLY! Please read below to understand what happened to my Seagate NAS 110. The only difference is that I have removed it from the casing and have connected the hard drive directly to my desk top through a secondary SATA connector. (I pulled the one off my DVD). However this drive is still not showing up! Is it a bad PCB? Drive? Is there anything I can do to find out what exactly the problem is without taking it to an expert?

PLEASE READ BELOW TO UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS PERSON JUST HAPPENED TO ME.

Thank you in advance!

Hello,
I am in the process of trying to recover any salvageable data from an external hard drive that I kept many, many photos and videos on. I am technically savvy however this is my first attempt at trying something like this on my own. After watching countless videos on you tube and various manufacturer web sites - I have found that it might be something I can do - AND I definitely can not afford the cost that the data recovery places charge to recover. So here goes:

Laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium

BlackArmor® NAS 110
Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive

So basically, the external hard drive was hooked into a router via Ethernet cable that was hooked into our cable modem that I could access on my home network and see on multiple laptops. I would see it as the "Z: Drive" - just what letter I assigned to it a couple of years ago. One night, I could not see the Z drive anymore on my laptop. SO I proceeded to reboot the External HD - the "System Status" blue light came on in the front but the light next to it labeled "Hard Drive Activity" would never come on - not blue, not orange...just nothing at all. I have tried resetting the HD by holding down the reset button on the bottom for 30-60 seconds. This will result in the System Status light blinking blue while I am holding it down but then it just goes back to a solid blue. All the while I can hear the hard drive spinning. I purchased a USB to SATA adapter so I could try hooking the HD directly into my laptop and bypassing the metal case that the HD was mounted to - just to see if it was the circuit board that is mounted at the bottom of the metal case or not. Still same thing - I cannot see the drive on my computer but the blue system status light stays lit up on the external HD and the drive is constantly making noise/spinning. I have tried hooking an Ethernet cable from the hard drive directly into the laptop but I still cannot access the HD.

Now it is doing something completely different - when I plug it into the wall the HD will power up...the blue status light comes on...the HD spins and makes noise and then about 30 seconds after that BOTH the System Status and HD Activity will go to a solid Orange for about a second...then the HD will restart itself and do the same cycle...Start up...go to blue system status light...spin the HD for 30 secs...BOTH the System Status and HD Activity will go to a solid Orange for about a second...then the unit will restart itself...and it just keeps repeating this pattern over and over and over. I have been playing/troubleshooting the external HD for about a week now and it JUST started doing this new restart thing as I type this. According to the manual if the system status light is orange this means "Server has a system error" and if the HD Activity light goes solid orange that means "Drive has failed". But the fact that it does not stay solid orange and it still spins confuses me.

The drive/platters spin so I know it is getting power.

So basically - the drive spins...it gets power...the system status light goes solid blue to indicate "server is ready for use" but the HD Activity light will not come on AT ALL. There is no grinding or clicking noises.

Here is the other interesting thing: When I hooked the USB to SATA cable up to the hard drive - the laptop recognized that some type of hardware was plugged into the USB port and it even showed up in Device Manager under the Hard Drive section...but nowhere under my computer or windows explorer could I see or access the drive.

So...I need help and suggestions please!!!! I was thinking about replacing the circuit board 100536501 REV A that is mounted to the side of the hard drive...I cannot see anything visibly burnt but I don't really know what to look for on a circuit board that has failed....since the HD still gets power but I really don't know what to so. I have also heard that you have to get the same circuit board that was made within the 2 week time frame in order for everything to work. So if I understand that right - that means that I need to know the date that my circuit board was manufactured so I can try and hunt down one that was made right around the same time and possibly from the same location?

Please help.

Thanks!

[jermy]

Post the terminal log

[S.Haran]

The Seagate NAS 110 uses Linux Software RAID aka mdadm. So you can not just plug it into Windows as Windows doesn't know what to do with a Linux RAID member drive. Assuming the drive is healthy you can probably use RAID recovery software like R-Studio or UFSexplorer to get at the data.

If you want to try the Linux way. Boot up a Linux CD and run the command: fsarchiver probe
If you see output similar to the below (from a remote recovery of a 2TB Seagate 110 I performed in the past).
Then you should be able to mount md3 and see your data. As root user run commands...

mkdir /data
mount -oro /dev/md3 /data
ls /data

If this does not work you may have an unhealthy/failing drive and the recovery then becomes much more complicated. First step is to check the SMART status of the drive. In Linux the command is: smartctl -a /dev/sda

Code:

fsarchiver probe
[======DISK======] [=============NAME==============] [====SIZE====] [MAJ] [MIN]
[sda             ] [ST32000542AS                   ] [     1.82 TB] [  8] [  0]

[=====DEVICE=====] [==FILESYS==] [======LABEL======] [====SIZE====] [MAJ] [MIN]
[sda1            ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown>        ] [  1019.48 MB] [  8] [  1]
[sda2            ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown>        ] [  1020.43 MB] [  8] [  2]
[sda3            ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown>        ] [   509.26 MB] [  8] [  3]
[sda4            ] [linux_raid_] [3                ] [     1.82 TB] [  8] [  4]
[md0             ] [ext3       ] [<unknown>        ] [  1019.38 MB] [  9] [  0]
[md1             ] [swap       ] [<unknown>        ] [  1020.31 MB] [  9] [  1]
[md2             ] [ext3       ] [<unknown>        ] [   509.19 MB] [  9] [  2]
[md3             ] [ext3       ] [NASRAID          ] [     1.82 TB] [  9] [  3]