Seagate ST2000DM001 - Buzz Every 2s, No Spin

[muzicman82]

Hi all,

I had this Seagate in a USB 3.0 HDD dock that I trust. It has a good power supply and everything was working fine. I docked it to get some data off of it to move to another drive. I only have one dock so I had to power down, swap drives, and hook up another drive.

When I went BACK to this Seagate, I now only get a 0.5s buzz and it happens every 1.5-2s or so. There are no other sounds. Is it seized or something?

I have another identical drive purchased at the same time as this one. I swapped PCBs momentarily and it still did not spin up with the working drive's PCB.

Is there anything else I can try? I know opening drives is often irreversibly bad, but if there's a chance I can do so to recover the data I'm all for it. I also realize this will void the warranty, but if these drives are as bad as they apparently fair, I don't want another one anyway.

I bought these because they had rave reviews and great performance when they came out... but I guess they're not holding up.

[mr_spokk]

Looks like the heads is on platters...sticktion.
If the data is relevant, take the drive to a pro. Should not be too expensive at this stage, but as it is a Seagate of DM series, it can go from good to worse in a second...

[muzicman82]

Any well priced (affordable) options in the USA? At this point, I can't even remember what is left on this drive. It's probably half full. Do any services show folder/file list before offering option of recovery?

[muzicman82]

Can heads on platters be as simple as opening the drive, reseating them, and hoping I can get SOME of the data?

And since I have another one of these drives working, I'm willing to use it as a donor. Considering the fail rate of these drives, I'm not sure I want to continue using them...

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

You should NEVER open one of those drives (or any drive at all) outside a hepa 100 clean room / laminar flow workbench.

The dust particles will cover the platter and the heads will be damaged and will damage the platter as well.

Those drives are REALLY BAD so never again use a Segate from the 7200.11 series and above, specially the 7200.14 series (DM are just very bad drives).

If you care for the data send it to a data recovery firm near you (a reputable one and not the ordinary computer repair shop) as not only it might be cheap at this point but also a good recovery firm will have hardware tools to clone the drive in a better way then any software would do, assuming that it's possible to make the drive spin up again without damaging the old heads.

Also make sure that you send in THE CORRECT PCB as the ROM chip on the PCB contains unique data necessary for the correct working and data extraction on your drive.

Spildit ,
Since i got my laminar flow i would like to share that 50% chance of a drive working after head stuck not more .Sometimes it works sometimes does not work and sometimes one head out of 4 is gone .

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Spildit ,
Since i got my laminar flow i would like to share that 50% chance of a drive working after head stuck not more .Sometimes it works sometimes does not work and sometimes one head out of 4 is gone .

Now try that on open air

Hi ,
I have tried earlier and also many people do it .But this is what they do .

1 : Open Drive
2 : Unstick Head Back To Ramp [ If they can ]
3 : Close and Run Drive .

With the laminar flow this is what i can do .Open drive .Take heads out ,Inspect under microscope if confident they are not physically damaged /bent etc put back and try .I have also seen many time they will not go up back to ramp why cos the front round needle type metal is bent . Learning day by day spildit but learning fast and only guy in my area in chandigarh with such workshop and experience now .Full confidence i have these day [ not not over confidence ] .I still practise daily 2.5 hours morning or evening [ took one of your advices given very seriously few months back ] .

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

So what would be the chance for someone without any exprience at all to open the drive on open air, move the heads to the ramp, close the drive and clone it without hardware tools ? Oh .. this of course on a DM series ....

I would say 5% and if something like ddrescue is used to clone the drive and if translator is still ok .....

Wanna bet what will happen if the OP attempts to do it by himself ?

Spildit brother ,
Most times i have been doing this on smaller 2.5" drives not the 3.5" once .I am sure you will have more idea then me on this one .I am still trying to arrange head tools to handle 3.5" drives .BTW have you noticed something .These seagate are way faster then WDC drives in speed .

[jermy]

BTW have you noticed something .These seagate are way faster then WDC drives in speed .

also die faster

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

BTW have you noticed something .These seagate are way faster then WDC drives in speed .

also die faster

jermy and spildit ,
Since work started flowing to lab more and more i needed some new drives to handle this .I got hold on 25 1tb + 6 2tb + 3 3TB and 2 4TB drives .In the 25 odd drives i have in 1tb in lab 33% are seagate ,Those thin once they really run fast and not failed yet [ but i am sure they will after all your observations aren never wrong buddies ] .those single platter seagate are fast really fast .

[muzicman82]

I should apologize. I failed to introduce myself seeing as how this thread is my first post here. I'm 33, and I've been around computers since I was 3yo. I've worked in IT, help desk, and I still freelance work. I work full time currently in pro-AV so I'm around electronics and computers every day. Hell, I've even micro-soldered with moderate success.

I'm no stranger to hard drives or the risks involved with opening a drive. I understand completely every warning out there. I have, in the past, opened a drive, fixed a problem (such as a stuck head), and lived to tell the tale.

While a clean environment would be nice, I can think of several repairs where it's 100% recommended (or "required") but I did them anyway with no issues. I've disassembled and cleaned SLR lenses and reassembled with absolutely zero visible dust.

Now, despite all attempts to stop me from opening the drive... I opened it, saw the stuck head, gently/quickly unstuck it, and put the cover on. Guess what... it spins up.. but now it clicks a few times, then spins down.

As far as the catastrophic damage caused by opening a drive... we'll never really know if 30 seconds in open air is the reason why unsticking the head didn't fully repair the drive will we? I would highly doubt it. My expectation would be perhaps dust particles causing unreadable sectors but not full spin up / spin down.

Besides, if DIY/amateur repair attempts are a way for me to possibly get some data, then sure.. I'm going to try it.. because I'm not paying $300USD to maybe get the data off. At worst, it's a video editing project for a client that has long since been delivered, and they aren't paying us to archive it, so if it's gone... it's gone.

I'm actually currently looking into whether I can inexpensively buy a head comb for this drive to move the heads from my other working identical drive to this one. If anyone has ideas, let me know.

[jermy]

I'm actually currently looking into whether I can inexpensively buy a head comb for this drive to move the heads from my other working identical drive to this one. If anyone has ideas, let me know.

you are ready to sacrifice another drive ?
IMHO this is what's gonna happen
although it's not a bad idea to kill another DM drive

[muzicman82]

Exactly my point. I've never particularly been a fan of the "let's make hard drives huge" thing that's been happening. Even 2TB is a LOT of data to trust to one piece of cheap hardware without backups. Case in point.

So yeah, given all of the failures I'm reading about on these, the other DM is empty, and I've got no qualms about trying a head swap for a chance of recovery. Each drive was purchased for around $80USD, so I'm not a huge loss here.

One of these days, I'll save up and buy a 8 or 16 bay NAS where I can throw drives in for rebuild as they fail.

[muzicman82]

This is some great info, thanks.

Actually, it appears that this drive is the 3-platter version. It also looks like there is no head on the top side of the top platter. So, does it care about dust?

I do actually own (or have made) a TTL cable before for use with router modding and other RS-232 applications. I'm a control system programmer so THAT part is not new to me.

As far as recovery goes, if the drive is recognizable, I do already own R-Studio for recovery.

Heads are gone.

DM series of drives are a nightmare to work with.

If you have a PC3K unit (costs $6000) you could replace the heads from a fully compatible drive, patch the adaptives on ROM that are unique to the set of heads and then you could attempt to use the DE (data extractor) to image by head if necessary because there is a good chance that you will need at least 2 to 5 donnors to get your DM drive fully cloned/imaged.

Those drives are REALLY BAD to work with to the point that some data recovery firms were refusing those jobs. And we are talking on perfcet clean platter without dust particles. If you add that to media damage and possible translator/firmware flaws it will be near to impossible to recover any data at all from your drive right now without :

1 - Proper laminar flow workbench
2 - Proper firmware and cloning tool like PC-3000
3 - Set of compatible donor drives - normally 3 are required.

Problem with translator on those drives arrise from the "bad blocks" that the drive will now have when hittig the dust particle. If translator gots damaged the drive will no longer be visible by the BIOS untill you fix that. If resident g-list gots damage you will get partial access only. Same if you regen translator without taking intro account the defects on the non resident g-list.

Further reading :

Translator, Defect Lists and Bad Sectors :
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1402

Hardware assisted cloning of a drive with Bad Sectors :
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=117&t=1410

If you manage to swap the heads correctly and if you manage to survive without head adaptive patching you still have to clone the drive (assuming the drive it's visible on windows). You can use ddrescue (your best free choice) but if the translator is damaged you will be stuck in something like this :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=196

If you still want to go the DO-IT-YOURSELF route you can buy a TTL adaptor, connect it to the drive and STOP RELOCATION first (with the good heads) as that will increase the chances of sucess on cloning :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=192

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=193

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557

Apart from that all that i can say is good luck to get your data back.

[kaxi]

Dear Amarbir,
I'm sure you mean well, but when giving advice you might need to take into account that the OP is not a DR professional, and doesn't realize how difficult and risky it is to swap heads or handle head sticksion without experience and knowledge, especially in the lack of laminar flow and tools, especially for a DM ST drive. The OP might be a computer genius, but you cannot expect him to know that this is very different from DR. He hasn't been there, but we have. Since most OPs are waiting for a tiny mention of a small chance of recovery in opening a drive to just go ahead, an experienced pro should protect the user by warning against it.
People shouldn't be discouraged to experiment, but doing so on a drive with important data is a garanted disaster.
We have many enthusiastic "I'm going to do a head swap myself" posts here, but none "I made it myself and it works" follow ups from non DR experts, for a reason.

[jermy]

We have many enthusiastic "I'm going to do a head swap myself" posts here, but none "I made it myself and it works" follow ups from non DR experts, for a reason.

and still, despite all warnings, once in awhile (unfortunately too often ) we'll see another failed attempt from someone to do a head swap