Question I accidentally dropped my Seagate Expansion 14TB External HDD (STKP14000402) ?

[randomusername1254939]

I accidentally knocked my Seagate external HDD off my desk. It would not connect to my pc afterwards so I swapped the cable and when that didn't work I removed it from the case and plugged it to a HDD dock. It made a not normal whining/grindy type sound, gave me a error that read something along the lines of there being a fatal hardware failure, then crashed my pc.

From what I've been able to find online, a common issue with dropped HDDs is that the mechanical arm becomes dislodged:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+To+Repair+A+Dropped+External+Hard+Drive/165405

But this model doesn't have 4 torx screws like in the guide or like the smaller HDDs that I own or have any obvious way to access the internals. There's nothing essential on the drive and I've already ordered a 20tb replacement, so I'm not worried if I make things worse, but I would like to get in there to get a closer look. Any help is appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

I accidentally knocked my Seagate external HDD off my desk. It would not connect to my pc afterwards so I swapped the cable and when that didn't work I removed it from the case and plugged it to a HDD dock. It made a not normal whining/grindy type sound, gave me a error that read something along the lines of there being a fatal hardware failure, then crashed my pc.

From what I've been able to find online, a common issue with dropped HDDs is that the mechanical arm becomes dislodged (https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+To+Repair+A+Dropped+External+Hard+Drive/165405), but this model doesn't have 4 torx screws like in the guide or like the smaller HDDs that I own or have any obvious way to access the internals. There's nothing essential on the drive and I've already ordered a 20tb replacement, so I'm not worried if I make things worse, but I would like to get in there to get a closer look. Any help is appreciated.

This is when you get a replacement drive, and recover the data from your backup.
You DO have a full backup, right?

 

[USAFRet]

And don't open the drive case in hopes of "fixing" it.
You'll just make things worse.

 

[randomusername1254939]

This is when you get a replacement drive, and recover the data from your backup.
You DO have a full backup, right?

I have backups, nothing is essential, and a replacement is already on the way.

You DID read the post, right?

And don't open the drive case in hopes of "fixing" it.
You'll just make things worse.

As far as I'm aware, the other option is to toss it, so I'm not sure how opening it would be worse.

Also, I was a crew chief on C-17s for 6 years, I took numerous hands on PC maintenance classes when I was earning my Network Admin degree, I've been building PCs for 20 years, tech guy for the entire extended family, etc. etc. so please don't talk to me like I'm 5.

 

[CountMike]

I have backups, nothing is essential, and a replacement is already on the way.

You DID read the post, right?

As far as I'm aware, the other option is to toss it, so I'm not sure how opening it would be worse.

Also, I was a crew chief on C-17s for 6 years, I took numerous hands on PC maintenance classes when I was earning my Network Admin degree, I've been building PCs for 20 years, tech guy for the entire extended family, etc. etc. so please don't talk to me like I'm 5.

You asked a very amateur-ish question and obviously never opened any HDD. I suggest you find a bad one and dissect it. Parts inside are very delicate and need a careful calibration even if/when repaired orchanged, Platters on most are made out of glass or thin aluminum and coated with ferrous oxide couple of microns thick. any speck of dust or a scratch can ruin data stored at those spots. Heads hover above and bellow platters by few microns, any hit on a platter can spell doom to heads and data on disks. On the other side of arm axle is a coil between powerful magnets with 1/000" clearance. that's the part that positions heads above certain parts on platter where particular data is stored and that's in less than 1/1000" increments. If you think you can deal within those precision tolerances. go ahead. There are disk repair, data retrieve services but they have very expensive equipment and charge accordingly.
PS. Although HDDs can take upwards of 99Gs when not running, it takes only 2.3 Gs to cause (almost)irreparable physical damage and certain data loss where heads crashed against platters,

Take that from an engineer that opened hundreds of HDDs to salvage those incredibly fine and precision made parts for own projects.

 

[randomusername1254939]

You asked a very amateur-ish question and obviously never opened any HDD. I suggest you find a bad one and dissect it. Parts inside are very delicate and need a careful calibration even if/when repaired orchanged, Platters on most are made out of glass or thin aluminum and coated with ferrous oxide couple of microns thick. any speck of dust or a scratch can ruin data stored at those spots. Heads hover above and bellow platters by few microns, any hit on a platter can spell doom to heads and data on disks. On the other side of arm axle is a coil between powerful magnets with 1/000" clearance. that's the part that positions heads above certain parts on platter where particular data is stored and that's in less than 1/1000" increments. If you think you can deal within those precision tolerances. go ahead. There are disk repair, data retrieve services but they have very expensive equipment and charge accordingly.
PS. Although HDDs can take upwards of 99Gs when not running, it takes only 2.3 Gs to cause (almost)irreparable physical damage and certain data loss where heads crashed against platters,

Take that from an engineer that opened hundreds of HDDs to salvage those incredibly fine and precision made parts for own projects.

Thank you for the answer. I understand that the drive is 99% likely toast and am trying to use this as an opportunity to do exactly what you suggested, to find a bad one and dissect it. I thought I might get very lucky, and maybe actually fix it. If not, I learned something. Other places I asked told me to toss it, and it seemed like a wasted opportunity to do that. Apologies if I conveyed that poorly.

Edit: P.S. It might even be an excuse to break out the micrometer from high school shop class! 🙃

 

[DSzymborski]

Thank you for the answer. I understand that the drive is 99% likely toast and am trying to use this as an opportunity to do exactly what you suggested, to find a bad one and dissect it. I thought I might get very lucky, and maybe actually fix it. If not, I learned something. Other places I asked told me to toss it, and it seemed like a wasted opportunity to do that. Apologies if I conveyed that poorly.

Edit: P.S. It might even be an excuse to break out the micrometer from high school shop class! 🙃

It's understandable to be curious given your background, but you'd run into a problem that you don't normally have: replacement parts are unavailable. Imagine if you could only fix planes by cannibalizing working planes! Can you post an image of the hard drive? They're sometimes clever how they hide screws and the like.

 

[randomusername1254939]

You're right though, I've been lucky with HDDs. I can be a bit overzealous with data security so i dismantle and destroy every dead disk, but it's been a few years since I last had to, and it's always been 4 easy torx screws in the past.

 

[randomusername1254939]

It's understandable to be curious given your background, but you'd run into a problem that you don't normally have: replacement parts are unavailable. Imagine if you could only fix planes by cannibalizing working planes! Can you post an image of the hard drive? They're sometimes clever how they hide screws and the like.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/QMmFn3b

 

[Misgar]

I accidentally knocked my Seagate external HDD off my desk.

I have a shelf with at least a dozen 3.5" desktop USB drives gathering dust because I no longer trust them to withstand accidental knocks or overheating. Instead I prefer heavier (50kg) servers filled with multi drive arrays for backups, plus LTO tapes. I hate to think what would happen if I managed to topple a server. Crushed foot or broken leg perhaps?

This is how the experts recover data in a clean room. The blue object represents a read/write head, seen side on. Note the Flying Height is only 3 to 6 nm.
https://acsdata.com/data-recovery-3tb-seagate-hard-drive/