Question Hard drive found as device but cannot load.

Yakei

Prominent
Jul 21, 2017
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510
Hello everyone!

I'm having isues with my USB HDD (Seagate BUP Slim).
Something happened with finding it as storage as the LED indicator won't light up.
The device is found in device manager with USB SCSI device and storage, but any attempt to launch/scan the drive with disk manager, seatools, diskpart etc. ends in program freeze. Even bios hangs when the disk is connected.
The only thing I've seen was "Lost partition" with petabytes of data in EaseUS Data Recovery.

Does anyone have solution to this problem? I've searched Internet over and over, but everything there seems to be just lost volume (which I cannot see anywhere).

Regards,
Yakei
 

Yakei

Prominent
Jul 21, 2017
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510
That's why I'm asking. I'm not sure what happened, but the drive starts spinning, clicks twice every 2 seconds, then stops after a minute. It's recognized as a device, but no partitions are displayed.
 
How old is the drive?

Has it ever been dropped or jostled violently?

The drives inside the case are just SATA interface drives with a USB adapter plugged onto the end of the drive and tossed into a case. They can be opened-up and plugged into the MB SATA interface, if the actual failure is the small adapter board.

Your description sounds more like head or pre-amplifier failure, though.
 
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Yakei

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Jul 21, 2017
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I just tore it down and ha! It's actually SATA... I'll try connecting that.
Edit: The disk was lying on the desk, so any physical damage was impossible, tho it was connected to the port, with system turning it off at some point.
 
Last edited:
Hmmmmm....those really aren't designed to be run much more often than using it for the occasional backup, then taken off the USB interface....and they really are as slow as the seven year itch, to boot.

When I used one to replace a GoFlex drive, a few years ago, I don't think it lived more than a year in use....so yours might have gone to the computer store in the sky.
 

Yakei

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Jul 21, 2017
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510
I have plugged the disk via USB adapter. It doesn't show any volumes, nor ID. Diskpart can't read how bit it is either, also DMDE finds it but says it's unavailable (funny, windows won't show it in explorer)
Gonna try plugging it directly to moterboard. Is there any way to make an image without having direct access?
 
Well, given the sounds you're hearing, I'm thinking that it's a drive hardware failure. Chances are that you will not be able to read it until those hardware failures are addressed.

If the drive contents aren't crucial, you shrug your shoulders and develop a "Murphy-proof" strategy for the future.

On the other hand, if the drive contents MUST be recovered.....that would be the time when I would look for an identical drive to start swapping parts from, or to swap the platter into (if it's a single platter drive).
 
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popatim

Titan
Moderator
It sounds like the heads cannot read based on the repeated clicking you get. If that's the case then you have the issues that you describe when attempting recovery which servers as further evidence. Turning it off while in use may have caused a head crash and damaged the drive. If yo cant afford sending the drive out for recovery (expensive) then you don't have anything to lose by opening it up and seeing if a head is stuck and the other ones are clicking. Sometime freeing the head is enough to get the drive working again. It will have issues but if it works you can usually get an image of the drive and recover some of your files. Keep in mind that some external drives have built in encryption into the usb-sata bridge which may make recovery impossible anyways so check with Seagate first to see if yours is one of those. (I don't think the BUP's do)

Lastly, please keep in mind that external drives should only be used for backup or moving files and never hold your only copy unless those files are safe to lose. Internal drives should always have important files backed up to another device; like an external drive.
 
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Yakei

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Jul 21, 2017
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Thanks for replying guys. I tried connecting the USB interface alone without the drive, which made the LED to blink, next, after connecting the drive via the interface, it was detected by HDTune Pro as 144 million gb with no SMART data etc.

As you said popatim, I've disassembled it.

Heads are stuck on their position and won't even move. Like they can't jump on the platter. Now after putting the platter up it's screeching like old NES games (probably begging for leaving it alone). If it is replaceable, then I'd gladly go for it.

I'm linking the video of how it looks like.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ns2hl5frUY
 
If the data is crucial:
Get an identical drive.
If it's a single platter drive, switch the old platter into the new drive and save the data.
If it's a double platter drive, put the new head / preamplifier assembly into the old drive and save the data.

If the data is not crucial:
You have a shiny decoration for your desk.
 

Yakei

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Jul 21, 2017
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510
Well not that much important, but it would be good to see what I had there. Maybe I'll go and ask someone to replace that, as I don't have any professional experience with that.

Thanks guys for helping me out. Let's call it a day.