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 Post subject: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 20th, 2021, 5:40 
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I have a Seagate Archive HDD (Seagate (STEB8000100) Expansion Desktop 8TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop). It was in an external enclosure. I have several external hard drives including a WD. I may have accidently used my WD power adapter for my Seagate Archive HDD. Nevertheless, my Seagate Archive HDD is no longer working.

I bought several of these Expansion Drives. I opened another one and it is a Seagate Barracuda instead of a Seagate Archive HDD. I was just hoping to have a Donor for parts but no luck there.

I went ahead and ordered from an online website the exact match PCB boards to see if I can get this hard drive working by myself. I am not looking forward to sending this off to a Data Recovery Service, but I am thinking about it.

If someone could help me troubleshoot this a little beforehand to see if I can get this working without having to send it off that would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my thoughts.

The drive is completely silent, there was never a horrific ending to the drive. Like it is spinning up and crashing, knocking, beeping, whatever. Just one day I plugged it in and nothing.

Now here is the odd part. It seems like something is barely connecting because in keeps connecting and discounting in windows. You hear the Windows Notification that it connects and then disconnects. Sometimes it stays connected and you can see in “Computer Management” under “Disk Management” the drive. It is like it is barely connected on a sub low level.

What will happen is that in “Disk Management” a window will pop up and say you must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. MBR vs GPT. Of course, after doing this, I get the error “The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”.

Disk 2, red down arrow, Unknown, Not Initialized

Most of the time the partition data or the available space does not show up in disk management, but rarely it does show up, i.e., size of partition and available space to create a disk partition. However, even when that shows up it still gives me the error “The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”.

My thoughts are that the drive is fully functional, but I may have blown a diode or something. The hard drive was sitting in an enclosure and had an extra PCB Board that was a bridge between the power supply and the hard drive. This other PCB board on the external enclosure is working perfectly. I popped out another Hard Drive from another enclosure used it on the bridge and everything works perfectly. So, I am not sure how the Seagate Archive HDD failed even when the External PCB power supply which held it did not.

This is what leads me to be that somehow the PCB Board is no longer working on the Seagate Archive HDD and this may be a simple solution. I ordered a new PCB Donor Board and was hoping all I must do is transfer the “Bios” and install the new Donor Board and everything works.

My question is troubleshooting.

Before messing around with my vital “Bios” chip. Can I just swap out my Donor Board to just see if power is restored and the drive spins up? I know I will not be able to access the Data however, I would be able to confirm that my other original PCB board is the main culprit. Then proceed to swapping the “Bios” chip on the Donor Board.

Will swapping the PCB board without swapping the “Bios” chip cause any “Data” loss or damage the Seagate Archive HDD?

Troubleshooting Steps

-1 Order Donor PCB Board
-2 Swap Original Board with Donor Board without Swapping Bios Chip
-3 See if Seagate Archive HDD powers on whatsoever, spins, etc.
-4 If powers on and spins up, swap out Bios Chip
-5 If Bios Chip is swapped and drive is still not responsive begin consultation with “Data Recovery Service”.

Another question is do I simply just send this off to a “Data Recovery Service” I would hate to swap out my Bios chip and make it more difficult for them to recover. However, if it is a simple PCB Board Swap and Bios Swap, I would prefer to do it myself.

Please feel free to give me any other pointers. I am just trying to perform some basic troubleshooting tactics before sending this drive off for an expensive recovery. I just have a feeling that this might be as simple as a PCB Board/Bios swap because the drive was never dropped, and in perfect condition. It is not that old either.

Thanks!


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 20th, 2021, 9:24 
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Didn't you like the replies on reddit ?

If you're prepared to send it to a pro, do that now; anything you do can potentially risk the data or make the recovery more costly.

If you want to DIY. Connect it directly to the motherboard, if it's seen in your bios and the correct size it's not the pcb. It's not clear from your post if it's spinning or if it's just the enclosure being recognised.

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 20th, 2021, 10:06 
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Joined: April 20th, 2021, 5:39
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Location: America
Lardman wrote:
Didn't you like the replies on reddit ?

If you're prepared to send it to a pro, do that now; anything you do can potentially risk the data or make the recovery more costly.

If you want to DIY. Connect it directly to the motherboard, if it's seen in your bios and the correct size it's not the pcb. It's not clear from your post if it's spinning or if it's just the enclosure being recognised.


I wanted to post this on a few sites to get some diverse opinions. I know this can get costly fast so I want to make the right decision before I do anything. This site seems like it only deals with this kind of thing so I wanted to be sure to post it here as well.

I am thinking about just sending it to a pro. Last thing I want to do is mess something up and make it worse or even yet unrecoverable.

Thank you for that TIP. I will try to get it directly to my computer and check the BIOS. If it does show up correctly which it has in windows before under disk management then it might not be the PCB Board. What would that mean? The drive froze?

Its not spinning at all, absolutely no sound. dead quiet. The only noise I will hear is windows connecting/discounting. If I am lucky I will see it in Disk Management but I can't do anything with it. I mean usually you read Hard Drives making all kinds of noises that people have problems with. i.e. knocking, beeping, scratching, etc. I hear nothing, like it is turned off and stays off.

You think this problem is bigger than the PCB Board or Bios?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 3:01 
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NeedsPractice wrote:
Thank you for that TIP. I will try to get it directly to my computer and check the BIOS. If it does show up correctly which it has in windows before under disk management then it might not be the PCB Board. What would that mean? The drive froze?

Its not spinning at all, absolutely no sound. dead quiet.
Connect it directly and put your hand on it, you'll may feel it spinning better than you can hear it.

If nothing shows in the bios and you can't feel anything spinning check the diodes and voltages on the PCB. If it is in the bios and is the correct size then you need to look at cloning/imaging the drive ASAP.

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 11:55 
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Joined: April 20th, 2021, 5:39
Posts: 82
Location: America
Lardman wrote:
NeedsPractice wrote:
Thank you for that TIP. I will try to get it directly to my computer and check the BIOS. If it does show up correctly which it has in windows before under disk management then it might not be the PCB Board. What would that mean? The drive froze?

Its not spinning at all, absolutely no sound. dead quiet.
Connect it directly and put your hand on it, you'll may feel it spinning better than you can hear it.

If nothing shows in the bios and you can't feel anything spinning check the diodes and voltages on the PCB. If it is in the bios and is the correct size then you need to look at cloning/imaging the drive ASAP.


Okay, I finally connected the bad drive directly to my motherboard to see if I could see it in my BIOS. Nothing. Can't see a thing. I connected one of the good drives and I could see it perfectly in my BIOS including the size of the partition. So how I can see this bad drive in Windows under Disk Management connected via a usb controller but I can't see it in my BIOS. When it is connected in Windows I can't do anything with it because it wont initialize, but something is connected. Oh wait a minute, I think windows is seeing the USB Controller and the USB Controller is telling windows something is here, however, when windows goes to access the drive through the controller there is no response. Honestly, what I am thinking is that this bad drive is getting zero power. I mean when I hooked up the good drive it immediately powered up and you could hear everything working, spinning, etc. When I hook up the bad drive, absolutely nothing happens, as if the drive never turned on. I think all the confusion is the USB Controller that was enclosed in the External Case is what is causing all of these confusion problems. If I connect the bad drive to the motherboard directly, zero, zilch, nothing. I don't feel anything, no spin, no clunking, not even it attempting to turn on.


What does this mean? Possible bad PCB Board? Or the Drive more than like Seized? I would think that if the drive seized you would hear it power up some and try to do this and that. I am more incline to think the PCB is dead and nothing power/information/commands are even getting to the hard drive.


What do you think?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 17:02 
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If it's not showing in your bios chances are you're thoughts on the usb bridge are correct, you're seeing that in windows not the drive.

If it's not spinning it's highly likely it's the pcb - even with heads stuck on the platter you'll feel or hear something.

fzabkar is your man for pcb electronics diagnosis, I see he's posted the test points for you. Most of the time with mechanical drives it's easier for us to just to swap the pcb out with something off the shelf rather than mess about. It may be a good sign that you have no power at all with a bit of luck your problem will lie here http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST8000AS0002/efuses.jpg

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 17:31 
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Joined: April 20th, 2021, 5:39
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Lardman wrote:
If it's not showing in your bios chances are you're thoughts on the usb bridge are correct, you're seeing that in windows not the drive.

If it's not spinning it's highly likely it's the pcb - even with heads stuck on the platter you'll feel or hear something.

fzabkar is your man for pcb electronics diagnosis, I see he's posted the test points for you. Most of the time with mechanical drives it's easier for us to just to swap the pcb out with something off the shelf rather than mess about. It may be a good sign that you have no power at all with a bit of luck your problem will lie here http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST8000AS0002/efuses.jpg


Thank you very much for all of your help. Is there one in a million lotto chance that I could just swap out the PCB Board and it will work, or 100% going to have to swap out the bios chip? I mean I don't have to worry about that photo you linked, meaning that if I swap out the board I don't have to worry about fuses, etc but I will have to probably swap out the BIOS.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 20:10 
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Posts: 453
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I would not mess around with the BIOS chip, they are delicate and once damaged its almost impossible to fix. Chances are that something happened to the drive PCB as you thought.

Take some pictures of both sides of the PCB and post them here. Also take a picture of the technical writing on both of the power supply you plugged in especially the WD one. I think the power polarity might be reversed and it blew something on the drive. Hopefully it might be a easy fix but don't go around swapping boards and removing chips yet, Get more info.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 21st, 2021, 22:54 
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Location: America
ShaneWard wrote:
I would not mess around with the BIOS chip, they are delicate and once damaged its almost impossible to fix. Chances are that something happened to the drive PCB as you thought.

Take some pictures of both sides of the PCB and post them here. Also take a picture of the technical writing on both of the power supply you plugged in especially the WD one. I think the power polarity might be reversed and it blew something on the drive. Hopefully it might be a easy fix but don't go around swapping boards and removing chips yet, Get more info.


Here you go:

Front:

https://ufile.io/89t3dg39

Back:

https://ufile.io/r8487cz0

WD:
https://ufile.io/zyyhnlr7
Seagate:
https://ufile.io/zgr1yput

I agree. I will need to be careful. I am thinking this:

1. Replace bad PCB Board with Donor Board and see if Drive comes to life without swapping the bios
2. If board comes to life; then swap out the bios: I am getting more and more confident in doing this
3. If bad drive does not come to life with swapping out the bad board for the donor board and without swapping out the bios I may go straight to a professional recovery service

Any other major things I can try before that or does that about sum it up?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 0:04 
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While waiting for fzabkar advice, you can check if you found a continuity between GND-5V and GND-12V on your SATA port.
This will normally confirm if you get at least a diode/fuse problem, but I'm not sure for Seagate, this tips is usually working with WD.

The symptom you describe seems like a diode/fuse problem, so don't hurry and go too deeper for the moment...


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 0:27 
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diybit wrote:
While waiting for fzabkar advice, you can check if you found a continuity between GND-5V and GND-12V on your SATA port.
This will normally confirm if you get at least a diode/fuse problem, but I'm not sure for Seagate, this tips is usually working with WD.

The symptom you describe seems like a diode/fuse problem, so don't hurry and go too deeper for the moment...


Do I try to check for continuity while the drive is powered on? I have to take the board off in order to test things. Do I just plug the sata connections like normal even though the PCB Board is not connected to the hard drive to test for continuity.

So there is still hope at this time? If this is a Diode or Fuse problem I may be able to fix this with minimal headache huh?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 0:37 
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Do not power anything to do a continuity test :!:
Just put your test pins to the SATA port, PCB alone or with HDA will surely change nothing I think.
You get a diode problem if you found a continuity.
Calibrate your ohm meter to about 200 ohm.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 1:07 
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diybit wrote:
Do not power anything to do a continuity test :!:
Just put your test pins to the SATA port, PCB alone or with HDA will surely change nothing I think.
You get a diode problem if you found a continuity.
Calibrate your ohm meter to about 200 ohm.


I have an automatic multi meter; so I think it calibrates itself. What do you mean if I found continuity I have a Diode problem?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 1:54 
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You have to found infinity, usually reported as a strange 1 by multi meter.
You can compare result with a working drive, you get this fuse problem if no identical result.

But, it seems your drive got e-fuse instead diode, so I'm not sure that the result we test will say something, at least it will if you found a continuity.

Also, normally, your PSU will not start if there are a continuity (shortcut), but I have already saw one that was starting anyway.

I don't know more how to bypass or test those e-fuse, and it's not sure that there is no more damage, like in the preamp, that you will have to also test before re-plug this drive.

Often it's just those diode/fuse/e-fuse/resistance that are damaged with adapter exchange. Good luck!


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 3:37 
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NeedsPractice wrote:
I agree. I will need to be careful. I am thinking this:

1. Replace bad PCB Board with Donor Board and see if Drive comes to life without swapping the bios
2. If board comes to life; then swap out the bios: I am getting more and more confident in doing this
3. If bad drive does not come to life with swapping out the bad board for the donor board and without swapping out the bios I may go straight to a professional recovery service

Any other major things I can try before that or does that about sum it up?
Sounds like a reasonable plan if you're not happy with a meter or comfortable with microsoldering. You should be able to find someone to do microsoldering if you need the bios swapped very cheaply (and certainly cheaper than DR). I'm pretty sure you can bridge the VIN and VOUT to bypass the efuse but the risk of letting the magic smoke out is high :lol: especially without the right tools.

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 9:03 
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diybit wrote:
You have to found infinity, usually reported as a strange 1 by multi meter.
You can compare result with a working drive, you get this fuse problem if no identical result.

But, it seems your drive got e-fuse instead diode, so I'm not sure that the result we test will say something, at least it will if you found a continuity.

Also, normally, your PSU will not start if there are a continuity (shortcut), but I have already saw one that was starting anyway.

I don't know more how to bypass or test those e-fuse, and it's not sure that there is no more damage, like in the preamp, that you will have to also test before re-plug this drive.

Often it's just those diode/fuse/e-fuse/resistance that are damaged with adapter exchange. Good luck!


Gotcha, yea, I think I will perform the PCB Board and report back my findings.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 22nd, 2021, 9:05 
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Lardman wrote:
NeedsPractice wrote:
I agree. I will need to be careful. I am thinking this:

1. Replace bad PCB Board with Donor Board and see if Drive comes to life without swapping the bios
2. If board comes to life; then swap out the bios: I am getting more and more confident in doing this
3. If bad drive does not come to life with swapping out the bad board for the donor board and without swapping out the bios I may go straight to a professional recovery service

Any other major things I can try before that or does that about sum it up?
Sounds like a reasonable plan if you're not happy with a meter or comfortable with microsoldering. You should be able to find someone to do microsoldering if you need the bios swapped very cheaply (and certainly cheaper than DR). I'm pretty sure you can bridge the VIN and VOUT to bypass the efuse but the risk of letting the magic smoke out is high :lol: especially without the right tools.


I think I can do it, I have been watching a lot of videos on the topic and I am good with my hands so I should be able to swap a bios chip with a rework station. Yea, not sure if I want to bypass anything and melting down something when I have a new board coming. I just wish I could swap the boards and didn't have to swap the bios chip, I wonder why this did this.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 24th, 2021, 18:11 
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Another Update:


I just got my Donor Board. The drive spun right up and sounds great, no crashes or nasty sounds. It does try twice to read and then gives up so I think there is where swapping out the BIOS is going to work, right? I'll go ahead an order a rework station now to perform the procedure.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 25th, 2021, 3:41 
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NeedsPractice wrote:
The drive spun right up and sounds great, no crashes or nasty sounds. It does try twice to read and then gives up so I think there is where swapping out the BIOS is going to work, right?


There's a high degree of probability.

Practice on something first if you're using hot air and aren't familiar, it's not as easy as online videos make it look and put some flux down don't try it dry :wink: Another alternative if you prefer working with an iron or lower temperatures is low melt solder.

Whichever way you do it just don't damage the legs - I know there's a lot of concern about cooking/popcorning the rom chip but I'd never actually had that happen, I have damaged my fair share of legs being careless though.

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent.
PostPosted: April 25th, 2021, 10:04 
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Lardman wrote:
NeedsPractice wrote:
The drive spun right up and sounds great, no crashes or nasty sounds. It does try twice to read and then gives up so I think there is where swapping out the BIOS is going to work, right?


There's a high degree of probability.

Practice on something first if you're using hot air and aren't familiar, it's not as easy as online videos make it look and put some flux down don't try it dry :wink: Another alternative if you prefer working with an iron or lower temperatures is low melt solder.

Whichever way you do it just don't damage the legs - I know there's a lot of concern about cooking/popcorning the rom chip but I'd never actually had that happen, I have damaged my fair share of legs being careless though.


Thank you so much for all of your help. Yes, that is incredible advice, and I almost forgot about that. I have several old hard drives that I don't care about laying around. I can easily heat up some chips and move them around back and fourth with some flux before working on the important board. I also ordered everything from flux, complete rework station kit to digital microscope that hooks up to a monitor. I will have this chip easily magnified so I can do the swap perfectly. I am going to be so grateful that if I swap this chip out and Windows Recognizes this hard drive I will be beside myself. If not, off to the recovery professionals.


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