Hey,

Had success recovering an old drive here quite a few years ago and thought I'd give it another shot.

I've got a Seagate 1 TB drive, ST1000DM003 is the model number. A year or two ago it failed while I was trying to move some stuff from it to another drive (it had started to disconnect at random and there was a clicking noise at times, so I knew time was limited). I got some of the more important files off but there's still stuff on there that would be nice to have. I'm talking about files that would be a welcome sight, but not worth paying for professional recovery services. I'm attempting to diagnose and potentially repair the drive at home.

The symptoms of the drive are; The drive starts to spin up, a high pitched "buzz" or squeak (think like a bed spring) can be heard briefly and then it just repeated spins up over and over every 1-2 seconds as though it's cutting off and starting again.

Thing I have checked so far;

1. Taken the PCB off and checked for burn/damage, there's none that I could see.
2. Cleaned the contact pins with Alcohol. Didn't do anything different.
3. Took the lid off (Yes, I know, it can cause damage but I wanted to check if the head was in the resting position), head was in the normal position, platter didn't have any major resistance when spun (using the middle bracket, nothing touched the disk itself).
4. Tried 2 different power cables as I have a HDD docking station. One cable doesn't seem to be able to power the drive and it just makes a clicking noise. This cable powers it up as though it was in a PC.

Things I need to check;
I need to find my RX to TX USB and see if anything is being sent over serial.


Has anyone come across this? It looks like these drives are generally not well regarded on this forum and there appears to be multiple firmware things that can go wrong. If it's a firmware issue, can it be solved using PC3000? If it's a hardware issue, do I need to replace the board or the head from a donor model? I appreciate any help

Everyone comes accross this everyday. Never open a hard drive. All these tests can be done safely by a professional without the need to touch anything. It sounds like you have just enough information to destroy any chance a professional would have.

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
Find Cheap Donor Drives App: https://www.zeroalpha.com.au/donor-drive-app Updated February 2026

Well,
Hard drive heads are firmly connected to hdd base using a screw and in many drives there is no screw at the bottom but only at the top ,Then you folks open lid and just ran the damn thing without thinking head is not firmly screwed and its not at 0 degree to platter ,How do you people think HDDs will survive such a torture .OH GODDDDDDD

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Your drive has serious physical issues, made worse by opening it no doubt.

End of the road for DIY and quite possibly for a pro now.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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