Hello everyone.

Two years ago, I bought à Seagate barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001 (great mistake).
At first, I had 2 issues with the drive :
- When plugged on the SATA port 1 of my motherboard, the drive would never be detected by the BIOS. Not much of an issue, i plugged it onto another one to solve this problem. Also, I tested the drive on another computer and this issue didn't happen, so I guessed it must have been a specific problem with my motherboard. This SATA port worked fine with other hard drives, just not with that Seagate one.
- After a computer reset / restart, the drive would never be detected anymore (no matter which SATA port it was plugged onto). I would have to shut down the computer completely and to switch the power back on for it to be detected again. This was more annoying, but at least I could still use my computer.

Still, the drive worked fine for 1 year after what it suddenly stopped being recognized by the BIOS. I then sent it back to Seagate since it still was under warranty. A few days later, they returned it to me and it worked again. The 2 problems above still happened, but the drive was working fine other than that.

Then almost 1 year later again, it again stopped being recognized by the BIOS, but not always. At first, it was correctly recognized maybe 50% of the time. Then the detection success rate diminished to maybe 20%, then it always failed, or nearly always. After dozens of times trying to have it detected by the BIOS, I gave up and concluded the drive to be dead again. But the day after, I tried again, and it got detected on the first try ! So after that I let the computer on all the time fearing the drive would no longer be detected if I shut it down. And this time the drive is no longer under warranty.

One day, the computer crashed while I was away. Then the drive would no longer be detected. After lots of tries powering off the on, the drive got detected again, and again, I let the computer on all the time.

But later I went on vacation and didn't want to let the computer on all the time. So I shut it down, and as I feared, when switching it back on, the drive is no longer detected.

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Now I read that the Seagate DM series are terrible (I wish I knew that when I bought it). But I also read that sometimes there is a simple DIY solution which may unlock it. I acquired a USB <-> TTL adapter in order to connect to it with putty, diagnose and maybe unlock it, but I am unsure how tu plug it. I read some info here : http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=193 but my adapter doesn't have the same colors on the cables. Mine are black, red, green and white.

I also read this article : https://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/ or this one (in french) : http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/H ... 6284_1.htm but I am unsure whether it is relevant with my problem since it's for the 7200.11.

Lastly, I want to add that mechanically speaking, the drive seems to have no problem at all. It spins correctly when plugged to the power supply ; and when it was detected again by the BIOS after having been "invisible", it was working very well (no data loss, all partitions ok, all files accessible perfectly). So the problem seems to be really stupid, some kind of auto-locking making it undetectable to the BIOS.

I don't have any "critical" data on it, but if I could have it all without any loss, I would gladly try.
MAYBE I could have it detected again normally if I tried lots of times like I did before, but it would not be a durable solution.

I would need some directions on how to connect the adapter to my Seagate drive assuming the adapter is correct, and what to type in putty to diagnose it. (Again, the cable colors are black, red, green and white)

Thank you for reading and for your patience.

Thank you for your answer.

I will do as you say.
I'm considering which brand to select for my replacement drive. You suggested a Hitachi ? I Heard they were somewhat noisy and hot. How about other manufacturers ?
I'm hesitating between a Toshiba one (a P300) and a WD one (Blue with 5400 rpm). Should Seagate be avoided at all costs, or was it just bad luck with these DM models ?

Also, if doing a RAID1 configuration, is it necessary or advised that both disks are the same model / speed, or is it unimportant if I mix a 7200 rpm with a 5400 rpm ?

Thank you.

After several days of unsuccessful attemps, I finally managed to access the drive one more time. I plugged it while on a Win XP session, then I opened the device manager and scanned for hardware changes. It immediately detected the drive, but it was just a case of good luck because I tried the same thing again later and it didn't work.

Anyway, I managed to copy all my partitions so in the end, I didn't lose anything.

I'll keep this drive to toy around and see how it reacts.

Thank you anyway.

Pouyou