External Hard Drive not Detected, status light turns off permanently after some time

[tr0lolol]

Hi,
I have a 1TB Seagate Ext Hard Drive (Backup Plus, model SRD0SP0) that I use on the TV. One day it suddenly cannot be read by the TV and the Computer as well.
Its status light turns on (does not blink) when plugged in (USB 3) and after some time (about 30s after plugging in)it turns off permanently, or until I plug it in again.
The drive does not show up in Explorer, nor detected by Disk Management, testdisk, Recuva, or DISKPART>.

But its driver shows up in Device Manager, but only until the light is on.
The drive does not make any noticeable noise, but when I put my ear on the drive as I plug it in I hear constant beeping for a few seconds (i timed it to approx 5s) then stops (all the while the light is still on).
And, the Windows sound that plays when you plug in a drive will play, but not the sound when plugged out when the drive (apparently) powers off.

Did the TV corrupt the drive to some degree? Or is this a power problem?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, tr0lolol.

It doesn't sound like the TV had anything to do with it. It really seems like the PCB or the enclosure of the drive might be having issues if it can't spin-up. You could give it a try with a different USB cable as well, just to make sure that it's not its fault, but most likely you'll need replace the drive. Since you've already tried some data recovery options, I guess you want the data that's on it, so you could give it a try with Ubuntu Live USB/DVD in hopes that it will be able to recognize the drive's partitions properly and access them. If that doesn't help and if you had no luck with data recovery software, I guess your best option would be a data recovery company.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[tr0lolol]

Hey there, tr0lolol.

It doesn't sound like the TV had anything to do with it. It really seems like the PCB or the enclosure of the drive might be having issues if it can't spin-up. You could give it a try with a different USB cable as well, just to make sure that it's not its fault, but most likely you'll need replace the drive. Since you've already tried some data recovery options, I guess you want the data that's on it, so you could give it a try with Ubuntu Live USB/DVD in hopes that it will be able to recognize the drive's partitions properly and access them. If that doesn't help and if you had no luck with data recovery software, I guess your best option would be a data recovery company.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

Thanks for the reply! I'll try the Ubuntu one right now. If the drive is indeed what you think its condition is, is it no longer normally usable?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well, if it's just the enclosure, you might be able to take it out of it and connect it via a standard SATA connection and use it. However this is never recommended because it voids the warranty of the drive; the drive might have hardware encryption, which will make data recovery impossible without its enclosure; it might have a proprietary connector, which won't let you connect the drive via a SATA connection. Probably the right course of action here would be to get in touch with the HDD manufacturer's customer support, to see what they have to say about it.
Please keep me posted.