[SOLVED] Have to send drive back to Seagate as failed. Want to wipe drive first but cannot see it via SATA to usb bridge

[Annie B]

I have a 4 year old gaming laptop and the Seagate Firecuda 2.5" SSHD has failed. It's under warranty and Seagate have asked me to send it back for a replacement, but they say I should wipe it first to remove my data, which I obviously want to do. I have a USB boot pen drive, and a boot drive on an external hard drive too so there should be no problem booting up from one of them and wiping the failed drive (or so I thought). I have tried both boot up drives. When I go in the laptop's boot manager it cannot see any other drives connected to the laptop. Safety boot is turned off. Still can't see any other drives. I can't select another drive to boot up from. It always boots from the damaged drive, then crashes. So basically I can't wipe the damaged drive when it's inside that laptop. I have had to remove it and try wiping it another way.

I have a mains powered (12V) SATA-USB bridge with an attachment that fits the Seagate SSHD. See link of the type I have here: https://rb.gy/ycs4el.

I attached the drive to the bridge and plugged it into a tested and working USB port in an older Windows 8.1 laptop. It gives the USB device connect chime, the SSHD spins up immediately, then after about 30 secs it spins down again. It doesn't show up as a connected device in the older laptop under My PC or under the Eject menu. If I go into Device Management settings the older laptop recognises that there is a SATA bridge connected, but it cannot see the SSHD on the other side of the bridge, not even in the 30 second window that it spins up in. Nothing there.

If the older laptop cannot see the SSHD, I cannot use any of the reformatting or wiping data options in Windows 8.1 Disk Utilities either. I'm basically stuck.

Anyone have any ideas? Because if I can't find a way, I'll be shipping all my personal data to Seagate on that drive. They will NOT replace the drive if the case is in any way physically damaged, scratched etc, so I can't hit it with a hammer although I would really love to!

Annie

 

[ex_bubblehead]

If it's failed to the point that it can't be seen then there's nothing you can do short of either crushing/shredding or placing the drive into a very large electromagnet and degausing (a tape degauser isn't even close to big enough). You'll simply have to make the decision as to whether or not to ship it back with data intact and receive a replacement under warranty, or, keep the data safe, destroy the drive and purchase a replacement.

 

[USAFRet]

Yep.
If its too far gone to have the PC or laptop recognize it, it is too far gone to do any wiping or deletion.

 

[Bob.B]

I have a 4 year old gaming laptop and the Seagate Firecuda 2.5" SSHD has failed. It's under warranty and Seagate have asked me to send it back for a replacement, but they say I should wipe it first to remove my data, which I obviously want to do. I have a USB boot pen drive, and a boot drive on an external hard drive too so there should be no problem booting up from one of them and wiping the failed drive (or so I thought). I have tried both boot up drives. When I go in the laptop's boot manager it cannot see any other drives connected to the laptop. Safety boot is turned off. Still can't see any other drives. I can't select another drive to boot up from. It always boots from the damaged drive, then crashes. So basically I can't wipe the damaged drive when it's inside that laptop. I have had to remove it and try wiping it another way.

I have a mains powered (12V) SATA-USB bridge with an attachment that fits the Seagate SSHD. See link of the type I have here: https://rb.gy/ycs4el.

I attached the drive to the bridge and plugged it into a tested and working USB port in an older Windows 8.1 laptop. It gives the USB device connect chime, the SSHD spins up immediately, then after about 30 secs it spins down again. It doesn't show up as a connected device in the older laptop under My PC or under the Eject menu. If I go into Device Management settings the older laptop recognises that there is a SATA bridge connected, but it cannot see the SSHD on the other side of the bridge, not even in the 30 second window that it spins up in. Nothing there.

If the older laptop cannot see the SSHD, I cannot use any of the reformatting or wiping data options in Windows 8.1 Disk Utilities either. I'm basically stuck.

Anyone have any ideas? Because if I can't find a way, I'll be shipping all my personal data to Seagate on that drive. They will NOT replace the drive if the case is in any way physically damaged, scratched etc, so I can't hit it with a hammer although I would really love to!

Annie

On the older pc if you connect a working hdd to the bridge does it spin up and stay up?

 

[Annie B]

On the older pc if you connect a working hdd to the bridge does it spin up and stay up?

Bob B, Thank you. I did think of that, ie to test the bridge kit actually works on something else. Unfortunately I only have spare older style SATA HDD which fits into the SATA bridge in the middle of the kit. The SSHD that I am trying to wipe has a different fitting and needs the additional adaptor and cable (which then connects to the SATA bridge). I could test that the SATA bridge central adaptor works but it won't help much, because the section that attaches to the failed SSHD drive would remain untested. The kit has been used once and it worked perfectly then - both sections. I used it to transfer data from an HDD to an SSHD, but that was in 2018 and it's been knocking aound in storage since then!

Thinking it through though, since my older laptop can see the SATA bridge, and the SSHD spins up briefly, that suggests (a) power is getting to the central SATA bridge section and (b) power is getting to the SSHD too. If there was no power getting through it wouldn't spin up at all.

I can't tell if it's getting enough power to maintain the spin, but the bridge kit power brick is 12V. That should be enough for most drives I would have thought. It's not as though I'm trying to power it from a USB port. I'm only trying to see it (and pass data) via a USB port. Hmmm. Maybe it's not receiving a data signal from my older laptop, and it therefore goes straight to sleep? I don't know if that's feasible.

Interesting problem. Possibly not really worth solving. I just hate it when things beat me though!! LOL

 

[Annie B]

If it's failed to the point that it can't be seen then there's nothing you can do short of either crushing/shredding or placing the drive into a very large electromagnet and degausing (a tape degauser isn't even close to big enough). You'll simply have to make the decision as to whether or not to ship it back with data intact and receive a replacement under warranty, or, keep the data safe, destroy the drive and purchase a replacement.

ex_bubblehead, Thank you. I think you're probably right. Either I decide to trust them to destroy the drive/data on it or I give up on getting a replacement drive.

My pocket wins. I'll send it back with the data on and get the new drive.

 

[Annie B]

Yep.
If its too far gone to have the PC or laptop recognize it, it is too far gone to do any wiping or deletion.

USAFRet, Thank you. I didn't think of that but you are right. If it's too far gone to be seen, the manufacturer aren't likely to bother doing anything other than destroy it anyway. I don't know why I'm worrying. I'll send it back.

 

[fzabkar]

If a drive spins up and then spins down, it often points to a head or media fault. That's because it fails to read the firmware in the reserved System Area (SA) on the platters.

 

[Annie B]

If a drive spins up and then spins down, it often points to a head or media fault. That's because it fails to read the firmware in the reserved System Area (SA) on the platters.

Thanks fzabkar

I have sent it back to Seagate without wiping it. Nothing I can do so I'm not going to worry about it.