[SOLVED] Dead Hard disk spinning and getting detected occasionally ?

Apr 8, 2020
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Hi. I have a Seagate 1TB internal hard disk which is dead for like over a month. Lost hope that I could recover some data. Until I noticed a peculiar thing. The hard drive spins perfectly as new without any strange noises. But of course, when it is connected to the SATA port of the motherboard, it isn't detected. Strange thing is, using an external USB to SATA connector, if I try to connect the internal hard disk, then it gets detected sometimes. But it freezes the PC it is connected to. Like I cannot move my cursor even. The rest of the time, it goes undetected. So I am curious to know, where is actually the problem in Hard Disk? Is it the PCB? I hope there must be some Data recovery experts here to answer this!
 
Solution
When a hard drive power up, it load its firmware from a reserved System Area (SA) on the platters. If the drive has a weak head, then it struggles to read the SA. If it cannot load its firmware, then it doesn't come ready and BIOS times out while waiting for it.

Seagate drives try to manage "pending" sectors during their POST. If this process takes too long, BIOS will time out. Some USB bridge firmware waits a little longer than BIOS. You might like to go into BIOS setup and wait for 10 minutes or so. Then exit without saving, or Ctrl-Alt-Del.

If the OS then sees the drive, it may hang when it hits a bad sector. If the drive is visible, try to obtain a SMART report with CrystalDiskInfo.

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Remember: Anything you do could cause more damage and/or further data loss.

My general thought is that the drive may not be getting enough power - more information needed.

When the drive is connected via external USB does the drive enclosure have its' own power supply versus any reliance on the computer's USB power?

Have you tried another known working power and data cables between host computer and drive?

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS.

Which Seagate model is the 1TB drive? Are there other drives installed?

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition.
 
When a hard drive power up, it load its firmware from a reserved System Area (SA) on the platters. If the drive has a weak head, then it struggles to read the SA. If it cannot load its firmware, then it doesn't come ready and BIOS times out while waiting for it.

Seagate drives try to manage "pending" sectors during their POST. If this process takes too long, BIOS will time out. Some USB bridge firmware waits a little longer than BIOS. You might like to go into BIOS setup and wait for 10 minutes or so. Then exit without saving, or Ctrl-Alt-Del.

If the OS then sees the drive, it may hang when it hits a bad sector. If the drive is visible, try to obtain a SMART report with CrystalDiskInfo.
 
Solution

thakursn

Commendable
Aug 4, 2017
11
1
1,510
Hi. I have a Seagate 1TB internal hard disk which is dead for like over a month. Lost hope that I could recover some data. Until I noticed a peculiar thing. The hard drive spins perfectly as new without any strange noises. But of course, when it is connected to the SATA port of the motherboard, it isn't detected. Strange thing is, using an external USB to SATA connector, if I try to connect the internal hard disk, then it gets detected sometimes. But it freezes the PC it is connected to. Like I cannot move my cursor even. The rest of the time, it goes undetected. So I am curious to know, where is actually the problem in Hard Disk? Is it the PCB? I hope there must be some Data recovery experts here to answer this!

I would suggest you first copy and retrieve the entire HDD data before using it or tying to correct it any more, if the HDD somehow fails, or becomes dead, retrieval of its data would be very risky, there is a possibility that you may not be able to retrieve its data at all - if it becomes dead.

After securing said data, you may like to proceed with rectifying the HDD.