Hi,
I have a Seagate HDD that stopped working in Windows yesterday. I was literally using it 10 minutes earlier before it died. I've spent all day trying to figure out what is going on.

SeaTools (Windows) gives a pass result for the SMART and Short Drive Self Test. When I do a "Short Generic" test it seems to hang. I haven't tried doing a long test yet because I figure what is the point if the short test doesn't work? Maybe I will do it tonight before I go to bed.

When I go to drive information, instead of showing the 1TB drive that it is, it shows 4GB. It also seems to be missing some information like run hours and temperature.

Windows won't recognise it at all.

When I use SeaTools in DOS it won't do anything and just gives me an error saying the drive is not responding.


So yes, very mixed results that have left me quite confused. I've been using computers a long time and have had quite a few drive problems before - but nothing as weird as this since the mid-90's.

Well, if the drive reports capacity of 3.86GB and (I assume) ID like ST_M13FQBL (or so) then either heads are gone (more likely) or it's firmware related (less likely).

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+1

most likely heads

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Data Recovery Pakistan

this issue is very famous in 7200.11
but this is mostly Firmware issue not head issue if hdd spin ok

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http://www.hpwlab.com

Really?
This is caused by drive being unable to read SA and initializing from ROM. So, 99% heads.

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My experience as well.

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I hope KingKrak gets lucky and he is the 1%, but I have to agree this usually indicates a head case.

yes most error in ROM not in head
most cases in 7200.11
and your 99% is your percent
i work in Refurbishing seagate
so don't say 99% for me
i repair many many cases with such error

not only with low capacity
in some cases give you 1299 GB for 320 GB

also same fake model

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and just repair same issue in my lap now and i make full video to break your 99% percent that you talk about it and i attach picture before and after repair

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Yes, its FW problem, not heads.

Thanks for the responses guys.

I took a look at the disk to see if it was the 7200.11 firmware problem - but the disk was made in 2012 and it is a 7200.14. The firmware version is very old and newer versions appear to fix this bug, so I downloaded Seagate's firmware update utility.

Only problem is I can't get it to work. The computer restarts and boots into the utility and instead of seeing the pages that Seagate says I should see, I just get a heap of gobbledygook. I've searched around on the net and can't find anybody else who has had this problem.

Yeah, whatever. I can show you 1500 cases with ST_M13FQBL with bad heads. You wanna refurb them applying fw fixes? Pay shipping and they're yours.

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Before you waste your time any longer, explain exact behaviour of drive when you power it up. Does it spin up click and spin down? Does it stay spinning? Provide terminal output. DO NOT apply any fw fix before you have a solid diagnostic result.

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SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners