Hey guys,
sorry if this has been asked before but my old Macbook Pro harddrive died. It's a Seagate Momentus 5400.2, Model: ST9100824AS, FW: 7.01. I took it out of the laptop and plugged it into my desktop via usb and while it spins normally (no clicks at all) the drive just isn't recognised, not by the OS or the BIOS.

I did a quick bit of searching and I think it's a firmware failure based on the symptoms, but I could be way off (and probably am to be honest!). Is there anything I can do to get my data off the drive? I'd like to explore the options before I go down the route of trying a data recovery service because I'm a humble student and I'm told data recovery can hit upwards of a thousand big ones.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Could be firmware or PCB issue or any number of other things. Need equipment to diagnose. Not much your are going to be able to do about either. Unlikely to cost £1000+ to get recovered, would think more around £300 if its nothing too serious. If you start playing with it yourself then it will likely double in price.

Basically there is not much you can do with out the right tools. You might be able to build a terminal connector and read the terminal output on this one. That could not hurt it much at all. But do not go playing around and put in terminal codes on this one if you have no idea at all what you are donig. This drive 5400.2 have other issues on this one.

All in all you have no tools and understanding of how the drive works so it too hard for you to fix this and get off your data. You are better to try and contact PCimage here on the forum he is in UK but there might be someone closer to you in Ireland. But like the other one said this should not cost you in the thousands to get this one fixed if you do not go and enter some commands that are not to be entered into this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini

7.01 fw Seagate in an Apple.... Google it!

Are you sure there are no untoward noises? Classic sign of their failure is a few short beeps then spin down and stay quiet. 99% of the time there is platter damage

Seriously, these are VERY unstable drives at best, and if you are lucky enough to have it still working (albeit to to a fashion) then any DIY fiddling is extremely likely to kill it beyond recovery by anyone.

My advice is NOT to bugger about with terminal commands, you will only make it worse and it is pointless.

While I am happy to take a look in the UK, member "CK" is in Ireland and comes highly recommmend. Give him a PM.

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

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Thanks for the advice everyone, plugged it in to make double sure there's no weird noises and it sounds exactly the same as my working external drive (unless there's something extremely subtle that I'm missing).

I'll send CK a PM just as soon as I figure out how to get permission to do so.

Thanks Sean, appreciate the kind words

@bmac, you can contact me directly at ciaran@criticaldata.ie if you can't PM. Happy to have a look at the drive and if recoverable, we'll be sure to give you the best price.

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Data Recovery Ireland

If the drive does not spin down then it is likely there is some other problem and the drive has survived the "7.01 menace" (which Sean described).

I second other members' advices not to fiddle with it, these drives are bitches.
CK is definitely your best choice here.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

I have seen tons of 7.01 and 3.CAE drives over the years and every single one of them had platter damage. Let's hope this one might break the run of bad luck with them!

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Data Recovery Ireland

We too have seen loads of them, have got one 7.01 and two 3.CAE that survived out of literally hundreds.

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

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

@CK just sent you an email there, thanks a million!