External hard drive starts to turn on for a few seconds, only to turn off immediately.

[datNasty121]

First time posting here, I have found some useful solutions to pc problems on TH in the past so I decided to post here. I will try any suggestion offered in this thread, but I am not a master of computers so as much specificity as possible is appreciated.

-Windows 7/64
-Seagate 2TB External Hard drive - model SRD00F2

Have been using my external for 2 years now, when I went into My Computer to access the drive but it was not there. It is also not recognized by disk management. It is, however, recognized by device manager.

The drive, when plugged into the usb port is recognized and the windows usb recognition sound is played. When the drive is given power I can hear it beginning to turn on for a few seconds, then it makes a couple weird "click" sounds, and it turns off. At no point does the drive's light turn on.

- I have reinstalled and updated drivers but no solution.
- I have tested it with a different usb cord but no solution.
- I have tested the drive on another pc but the same thing happens.

I happen to have screenshots of device manager recognizing the drive, a screenshot of disk management not recognizing the drive, and a 15 second video of turning the drive on and it powering down with the sounds it makes, if that is helpful.

Please let me know of any other information you might need to help diagnose this issue.

Thank you.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, datNasty121!

Good job with the troubleshooting so far! Now, I'd recommend you to run your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool (both the short & long tests) and find out what is the health and SMART status of the hard drive.
It seems like the issue is related to the connectivity of the HDD, but since changing the USB cable didn't work, it must be something wrong inside the enclosure or the enclosure itself.
I'd suggest you to refer to your manufacturer's customer support if the HDD is still under warranty! You should be able to RMA it and get a replacement.

Hope this helps, though. Keep me posted.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[datNasty121]

Welcome to the community, datNasty121!

Good job with the troubleshooting so far! Now, I'd recommend you to run your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool (both the short & long tests) and find out what is the health and SMART status of the hard drive.
It seems like the issue is related to the connectivity of the HDD, but since changing the USB cable didn't work, it must be something wrong inside the enclosure or the enclosure itself.
I'd suggest you to refer to your manufacturer's customer support if the HDD is still under warranty! You should be able to RMA it and get a replacement.

Hope this helps, though. Keep me posted.
SuperSoph_WD

Hey SuperSoph_ WD I really appreciate your response. I just downloaded Sea Tools and ran every test, but every test I ran failed almost immediately after starting it. If it matters, the generic Fail Info said,
"Unfortunately, your Seagate product has failed an important diagnostic test, possibly caused by problem sectors which are difficult to read. Now is a good time to make sure that you have a current backup of your important data. If you have not done so already, please consider running the Long Generic test on your external drive. This test has the ability to repair problem sectors that are difficult to read. For more information on this subject, see the Help file topic "Bad Sector Found".

Unfortunately. the drive is no longer covered under warranty but in this case it's really not about the money, rather, it's about recovering the data.

So if it is something wrong inside the enclosure itself what is my next step?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, datNasty121!

That's very unfortunate! I'd strongly advise you to consider turning to a professional data recovery company. They are your best bet at getting the most of your files back. Unfortunately, if the HDD fails all the diagnostic tests, there's no way for us to determine exactly how damaged the external HDD is. That's why I really wouldn't recommend doing data recovery attempts by yourself.

People usually try taking the HDD out of the enclosure to access it via SATA (internally) or using a different enclosure or a dock station (externally). However, if you decide to try this, I'd recommend you to check your external HDD model and make sure it doesn't incorporate a hardware encryption. Otherwise, you'd need an identical HDD enclosure to access it.

Recovering data is rarely a 100 % successful procedure, so I'd definitely give the professional data recovery company a try.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[datNasty121]

Hey thank you again for your helpful response.

After using my friend's docking station I experienced the same problem that the HDD gives me on my PC. Although I already stated that in this case it is not about the money, after getting some quotes from data recovery companies - a minimum of $500 is simply too much for me to spend.

So what I am going to do is attempt to recover my data with the help of some knowledgeable friends. My final question for you is - what measures can I take in the future to never lose my data again? I realize this may sound naive, but I purchased this drive years ago for the purpose of being my backup - big mistake I now know. Is there a cloud service with enough storage for about 2TB of data, besides paying $100 month for 10TB at Google Drive? I really find myself in a difficult position here because of how many hundreds of hours I spent searching the internet for these files, and then organizing them so thoroughly. Is the prospect of a HDD crash just a part of life everyone has to deal with? Is the common thing to do to get a backup drive for my already "backup" drive?

Very sad day

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

That seems quite unfortunate, @datNasty121! I truly hope you'd be able to recover your files successfully!
In the future, you should consider getting backup storage drives or use cloud storage. There are plenty of choices on the backup solutions nowadays.
Yes, it's common to keep your data stored on at least two different drives as a backup. Just make sure that just because that drive is a backup, you can easy delete all the data from the primary location in order to save capacity. This is not a backup solution if the data is stored on one place alone, even if it's an external.

Trust me when I say that we've all been where you are right now and lost precious data that we could not retrieve! You can choose from massive external HDDs to consumer home NAS (network-attached storage) solutions, burning Blu-ray DVDs, online cloud solutions like in Google drive.
However, a lot of people do not feel safe about their data if it's stored somewhere on a server, which is what online cloud storage is all about. What I've noticed lately is that it's quite common for users to buy or build custom network-attached systems, because of the multi-purpose storage solutions that the NAS serves. However, keeping your data on the NAS alone is not a backup solution either, always make sure you have a copy elsewhere.

I, personally, can share how I do the backups at home:
- I use an off-site external portable HDD that backs up my whole system and precious data. I usually use it only every other week, depending on the new data added to my system.
- In addition to this, I use a NAS again for my whole system and data, which is constantly ON and connected to my router. This kind of storage also gives me the opportunity to access my data from anywhere through my phone or through the NAS app on my laptop.
- Since I already lost half of my music collection once, I also burn DVDs every now and then.

Better safe than sorry, right? No matter how you decide to do it, always keep in mind that any hardware could fail at any point of time. When it does, it could be easily replaced through RMA services or simply buying a new one. However, the data stored on that hardware could be severely corrupted which could ruin the file itself, even if it's recoverable. If you are cautious and take good care of your backups, you should be able to avoid such data-loss headaches in the future.

Hope I was helpful, though. Let me know if there are more questions!
Best of luck with the data recovery and Happy Holidays!
SuperSoph_WD