Seagate 2.5" Clicking - Made in China - So many dead ones!

[zed]

Hi All,

I have seen many Seagate 2.5" Momentus 5400.2 series hard disks that arrive clicking and not detected in BIOS. Most from Apple notebooks.

Does a head swap usually fix this problem? If so - what is the critieria to match up to swap heads on this disk (e.g Model: ST98823AS) in this case. I heard you need to match the model # and the 3rd character of the serial #.

But this disk i have has an Apple logo on it, not sure how this will affect the purchasing of a donor for good heads. Any tips on what to look for before i buy on Ebay? e.g match model # and country?

[CK]

Most of them have Firmware 7.01 and an Apple logo on them. If this is the case, you are wasting your time doing a headswap as nearly all of them that we have seen have platter damage. It's usually on the underside of the platter so you'll need to remove them to get a look at it (using obvious precautions of course!).

We do a lot of DR for apple service centres and have seen a large volume of them in the past 6 months. I'm sure there are a lot more of them ready to fail out there....

[zed]

Yep - it's a Firmware 7.01. i'll check the platter to check before i go shopping for spare parts. Thanks CK.

[coffeebean]

Hi zed,

Much easier to check heads for media damage - view heads with microscope
and you will easily see if media is damaged.

[N.C.]

Hello CK

I have one drive with this case too.
Did you find any solution or partial solution?

Thanks,
Janos

[CK]

Yes Janos, throw it in the garbage! From all the drives I've seen, all of them have had platter damage and as a result, nothing can be done.

Lots of the guys on the forum have seen these drives too, I think Duncan (odiferous) has been quite vocal about the problem on his website.

[jono-ats]

Depending upon where the platter damage is, sometimes some data can be recovered by those who are able. However, these drives often have data corruption as well, so that sometimes the data set retrieved isn't of much use.

I have been in contact with Seagate corporate about this problem since Feb. '07. Their position is that this series doesn't fail more than the statistical norm and that there is no problem. If so, why do we see more of these fail than any other laptop drive we get in for service? Sometimes we would get as many as 5/day.

[N.C.]

Ck:

What is the original problem with these drives?
I have checked the heads, and i have only found the damages from the surface on these.
I have not seen any crash or like this.
It is a generic state when the dr is possible?
(i know, if the user let the drive clicking, the chance is gone....)
Always the botton side is the damaged?
Always the same head?

(in my case the drive clickig over one night, and all the heads was dirty.)

Thanks,

Janos

[wiseleo]

Had seen a few of these from Macbooks.

The annoying part is trying to find healthy donors for them. That firmware is mostly extinct on eBay.

It would be nice if Apple sent a reminder to their customers to buy an external drive for backup purposes as Apple warranties the drive but not the data on that drive. That way the impact would be lessened and customers would get some help. Usually, corporate communications from Apple are welcomed and adhered to promptly.

[BlackST]

They sell. Period. They will replace defectives during warranty. Everything else is up the customer, data, backup and recovery. That's mass market.